Well, they didn’t walk in and there was no bar, it was empanadas.  I had about 12 pounds of figs left from the last few days of fig harvest on our tree, bought some apples and a nice sized pumpkin the other day at the market.  As soon as I saw the pumpkins, I knew empanadas were happening.  I didn’t count on there being apple and fig ones too but the pumpkin ones were a no-brainer.  Grandkids were coming for the weekend and there was going to be an empanada bakeathon in my kitchen.

A couple of days ago when I bought the pumpkin it was cold.  In fact, I was wearing my Ugg boots and sweater on that market trip.  Even last night when I cooked down the pumpkin it was a bit chilly.  I couldn’t sleep so for some crazy reason, I hopped up at 1a.m threw the whole basket of figs into a pot with some cinnamon and sugar and turned it down to simmer then finally snuggled in with Jasmine, Aiden and Ozzy and eventually slept.  I woke bright and early and got the kids breakfast, took the dog out and surveyed my figs which had cooked down perfectly while I was in dreamland.  When I went to the fridge to get the butter for the masa, I saw the apples and they ended up on the chopping board.  I’m a little obsessed about baking.  Then it hit me that the sun was blazing and I had an oven pre-heating.  Fun.  Oh well – empanadas were happening.

We baked all day.  Empanada after empanada was rolled, filled, pinched, poked, egg washed and baked.  Jasmine turned out to be quite the expert at rolling and forming them.  I’m so proud of her.  Her little rounds fell off her rolling pin in perfect circles.  She is SUCH a baker!  Aiden on the other hand, hmmm.

Aiden decided to take a mixing bowl, fill it with Maseca (corn masa), cinnamon, sugar, salt, milk, warm water, some butter and some mace.  Then he mixed it all up, asking me every so often to taste; which I did reluctantly.  I deserve the Grandma of the Year Award for that one.  When he’d decided it was perfect, he dipped corn tortilla chips in it, pronounced it his gourmet dipping sauce and asked, “I’m a weely good chef, aren’t I Gwaaaamy?”  I said yes, choked down a few more of those chips with as little of the “dipping sauce” as possible and tried to foist the rest off on my son Phillip who wasn’t having any of it.  Wimp.

By the time Marissa got here to pick up her kids the house was filled with the smell of baking, she had two very exhausted kids (they’ll be asleep before they get home) and a basket full of empanadas to go.  I get the messy kitchen and a sad-eyed dog who’s just lost his litter mates (my grandkids).  Sorry Ozzy, it’s going to be a long, lonely week till they’re back again for Wepa Weekend with Grammy.

Empanada Dough

4 cups of flour
1 tsp of salt
1 tbsp of baking powder
1/4 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 cup of butter
Warm water
Egg wash

Mix the dry ingredients well, then cut in the butter.  Add the eggs and enough warm water to mix the dough into a smooth ball.  I add it about 1/4 cup at a time.  You don’t want to work the dough too much, just enough to get it smooth and elastic.  It seems to vary each time I make it depending on the weather or the flour’s absorbency.  My grandmother did the same, worked the water in bit by bit rather than a set amount.  Kinda like pie dough.

Once you have a nice smooth ball, cover it with a damp cloth.  I tend to prefer flour sack because it’s what my grandmother used and it works really well.  It keeps the dough from drying out and since I usually make tons of empanadas whenever I make them, the dough tends to sit for a long time.  Every time the towel dries I just sprinkle a little more water on it.

Form small balls of dough by pinching off a piece.  I say about the size for tortillas.  Keep those covered under the damp cloth as well.  Roll the each ball out to about a 4-inch diameter.  We like our empanadas big here but you can do them smaller.

Scoop a bit of filling into the center, then brush a little water on the edges of the dough.  Fold over.

Press down with your fingers all around the semi-circle then fold the dough over and pinch. Keep doing that all the way around.  It gives the empanadas a double seal and helps keep the filling in.

Take a fork and poke a few air holes into the center of the empanada, then brush with egg wash and place on a greased baking sheet.  Repeat until your baking sheet is full.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 10-15 minutes.  I go by smell so I never time them.  You want the empanadas golden brown.

Try to wait at least 20 minutes for them to cool or you’ll burn your tongue on the hot filling.

You can fill empanadas with pumpkin, cherries, pineapple, apples, pretty much anything.  Ours were filled with pumpkin, apples and a fig jam.  Some of them were a combination of fig jam and apple and some plain.

Buen provecho!

When I was a little girl growing up and hanging out in my Grandma Lupe’s kitchen, I always looked forward to the weather cooling off because then it would be time for her wonderful empanadas. There was nothing better than being in that small but homey kitchen at the old red table half covered with wooden boards dusted with flour, neat little balls of masa (dough), the bowls of chopped apples dredged in cinnamon and sugar, the freshly cooked mashed pumpkin or banana squash and other fruits ready in preparation for those empanadas.

Like my Papa Chava, my favorites were the apple ones and I remember hardly being able to wait till they got out of the oven. I almost always scalded my tongue biting into a too hot apple empanada, the hot sticky juice dripping down my chin. I didn’t care how burnt my tongue got, they were that good. The smell was intoxicating too. Who doesn’t love the smell of baking apples and cinnamon?

The masa or dough was an awful lot like tortilla dough, but instead of lard Grandma used butter and a sprinkle of cinnamon and I can’t remember but I think she added a bit of sugar to the dough and when I make them for my grandkids, I add in a bit to give the dough a little sweetness. Grandma Lupe would make a huge amount of the dough and then pinch of little balls of it and cover them with her flour sack dishtowels to keep the dough from drying.

My very important job as a little girl was to scoop pumpkin or apples carefully into the center of the rolled out circle of dough, brush on a little egg wash along the edges and then pinch over the edges into a neat little pattern, making sure it was tightly closed all along the edge. My Aunt Jessie and Papa helped too and we worked quickly, filling a variety of cookie sheets with lots and lots of ready to go into the oven empanadas. A brush of egg wash went over the top of each empanada, then they were poked three times with a fork. I loved doing that.

Soon enough the house would begin to smell of baked dough, apples and cinnamon, the sweet gingery scent of pumpkin, and whatever other fruits we were making empanadas from. Sometimes we did cherry, pineapple, guayaba, or peaches. It depended on what we had in the house or what we felt like experimenting with. I’ve made them from membrillo (quince), guayaba and cheese, raspberries, strawberries, etc and I love them all. I remember days standing out in the cold waiting for the school bus eating a hot empanada wrapped in a napkin and feeling like I couldn’t have a better breakfast.

To this day, my favorites are the apple empanadas and each time I bite into a too hot empanada and scald my tongue, I remember those chilly days in my grandmother’s kitchen and how happy they made my grandfather, who loved to dip them in his cup of coffee. No matter what kind we made, we always had to include apple for him. My grandmother never once failed to consider how much he loved apples. The memories I have of empanadas make me both grateful to have had that childhood of wonder in my grandmother’s kitchen and wistful as I wish she and my grandfather were still here.

I don’t make as many empanadas these days since my kids are grown and gone and I’m trying to be better about giving the grandkids too many baked goodies. These days I’m trying to give them more fresh fruit and cut up veggies but occasionally sneak in a yummy thing like empanadas.

Grandma Lupe’s Empanadas de manzana
For the filling:
12 baking apples, peeled, cored and sliced
3 tbsps sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Mix together the apples, ginger, sugar, cinnamon and lemon juice in a large mixing bowl. Set aside.

For the masa:

6 cups flour
1/2 c butter
1/4 c sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
Hot water
Pinch salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 325.

Sift the flour, sugar, salt and cinnamon together until well blended. Add the eggs and cut in the butter then add the hot water, little by little (i do it in sprinkles) till a soft, but not sticky dough forms into a smooth ball. Pinch off small balls (about 3 inches in diameter) and let rest on a floured board covered.

Roll out a ball into a 1/4 inch thick circle and scoop in the apples making sure that when you fold it over, the apples don’t go out to the edge. Brush the edge with an egg wash, using a pastry brush then gently fold over and seal the edges by pinching them closed. Add holes to the center to allow the steam to escape, then place onto a greased cookie sheet. When the cookie sheet is full, brush each empanada with the egg wash and then bake for about 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

It’s a little chilly in the apartment this evening and my roommate Marianella and I were chatting about what to do with all the delicious Fuji apples we have in the fridge. She began telling me about her life in Norway and how her then husband Thor (such a cool name) used to make a wonderful bread pudding of sliced bread, eggs, milk and apples so I decided to riff on that and come up with my own version. Not only would we get a dessert but the apartment would warm up with the use of the oven.

I whipped together some eggs, evaporated milk, cinnamon and nutmeg in a kind of French Toast custard and set that aside. I peeled, cored and sliced apples then dredged them in cinnamon and dotted the mixture with bits of good butter. I then pulled out a big loaf of sliced wheat bread that I wasn’t thrilled about eating along with a container of dried apricots I had bought the other day at the little Armenian store on Broadway, turned on the oven and checked out my pile of stuff then I began to assemble it. At first, I wasn’t completely thrilled with this recipe and changed it a few times before I got it right.

Apple & Dried Apricot Bread Pudding

6-8 Fuji apples, peeled, cored and sliced
2 cups dried apricots, chopped
1 cup raisins
1 cup sugar
Sliced wheat bread (preferably stale), cubed
Butter
2 cans evaporated milk
6 eggs
2 tbsps, cinnamon plus more to mix in with the apples
1 dash nutmeg

Mix apples with cinnamon to taste and dot with butter. Pour into a pan and sautee until caramelized. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl mix together the milk, eggs, cinnamon and nutmeg until well blended. Mix the cubed bread into the egg mixture until it is all coated. Let sit for about five to ten minutes then fold in the caramelized apples, chopped dried apricots and raisins into the bread.
Butter a large and deep baking dish and scoop in the bread mixture. Cover with aluminum foil and bake in a 350 degree oven for about 1 hour, removing the foil the last ten minutes to brown. The pudding should be crispy on top and creamy inside.

Serve hot with a dollop of freshly whipped cream on top. I don’t sweeten the cream, just add a dash of nutmeg and vanilla as I whisk it.

One of the things I love most about the cold weather celebrations in Mexican households is the traditional ponche (hot fruit punch). There is nothing like it. The smell is incredible, it’s packed with stewed fruit and has an unbelievable flavor. You can add a dash of tequila for someone who wants an extra kick to hit, but I love it just as it is. It’s one of my favorite things and I look forward to it every year. I knew I just had to make some for my guests at the tamalada.

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In ponche, there are some hard-to-find ingredients but they are absolutely necessary or it just won’t be the same. Fortunately, the ingredients are getting easier to find here in L.A. One of the main ingredients, tejocotes, used to be virtually impossible to get unless you went to Mexico and brought them over canned since you can’t bring fresh fruit across the border.

The tejocote is what gives the ponche it’s unusually delicious flavor and without it, it’s just so-so. I’ve been lucky in the past few years being able to find them (at somewhat high prices) frozen. This year, I hit the tejocote lottery and found them fresh! I paid a high price per pound, but the ponche was amazing and it was worth it.

I’m using my grandmother Lupe’s recipe, originally written in Spanish so the measurements may be a little off. I never measure and I never could translate grams and litres into cups and teaspoons.

Some of my guests came in cold from the weather and a hot cup of ponche was just the thing to warm hands and tummies.

Ponche (Mexican Hot Fruit Punch)

1 ½ pounds Tejocotes
1 ½ pounds Guayabas (guavas), not very ripe
1 pound of apples (I used Gala) sliced into rings so that the star in the middle shows
1 pound of Caña (sugar cane) – you can get it frozen in Mexican specialty stores if you can’t find it fresh. If fresh, chop into 2-inch sections and peel. If frozen you can add it right in, it’s already sectioned and peeled.
10 prunes
1 piece of piloncillo (Mexican brown sugar cone)
1 handful of flor de Jamaica (hibiscus flowers, dried)
1 cup of pineapple chunks or rings (optional)
1 dried piece of tamarindo (tamarind), peeled (optional)
Tequila or rum (optional)

Wash all the fruit, peel the sugar cane and slice the apples.
Soak the hibiscus flowers in cold water for about five minutes and strain.
Put a big pot on the stove half filled with cold water and add the tejocotes and cinnamon sticks. Let come to a boil, then add all the fruit and piloncillo. Make sure that the water covers all the fruit. Cook on a medium heat, covered till all the fruit is soft.

Serve hot with some of the cooked fruit in the cup. Add a dash of tequila or rum if desired.