Saturday, November 29, 2008

Empanadas with Goat Cheese, Black Beans and Sweet Plantains


I'm part of a lunch group at work; every day a different person brings in food. About 8 months after I started the group, a vegetarian was hired. Now I am all about free choice, but this threw a serious wrench in the works (<-is that a saying?). As a result, I was forced to come up with some veg-friendly dishes.

Ingredients:
Dough to make about 12 empanadas (homemade, or frozen-if frozen, remove from freezer before starting to cook)
1 can black beans, rinsed
1/4 cup minced cilantro
1 small onion
1 green pepper
4 cloves garlic
4 oz goat cheese
2 fried sweet plantains (if you are not feeling it, buy Goya frozen ones, they are very close to the original)
Salsa
1 avocado
2 limes
Cumin
Paprika

Preheat oven to 375.

Mince the cilantro and garlic and dice the pepper and onion. Heat oil over medium-high heat in large saute pan. Add diced/minced ingredients and turn heat to medium. Add 1/4 teaspoon paprika and 1/4 teaspoon cumin to mixture. Saute about 7 minutes or until onion is translucent. Remove from heat.

Slice fried sweet plantains (maduros) into small chunks, about 1/2 inch wide. Mix into black beans. Crumble goat cheese over beans and mix well. Add sauteed ingredients to beans, stir and set aside.

Roll out empanada dough and cut into small discs, about 3-4 inches in diameter. If using frozen discs, gently roll out a little to loosen the dough. Fill each disc with about 2 tablespoons of filling. Fold over to create a half-moon and use a fork to pinch dough shut. Repeat until all filling has been used.

Set filled shells onto a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Cook about 20 minutes or until empanada dough is starting to turn golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool a little on cookie sheet.

Slice avocado into 1/4 inch strips and cut limes into 12 wedges (6 for each lime).

Serve empanadas with sliced avocado and salsa for dipping. Squeeze lime juice over empanada to eat.

13 comments:

  1. This is wonderful! Great combination of flavors, yum!

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  2. wow. that sounds like an amazingly good combination. i love plantains!!

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  3. uepa uepa uepa . these might be the most decadent empanadas ever concocted

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  4. One can be so creative with empanadas and your combo certainly illustrates that. I love that you added the avocado and lime as a garnish.

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  5. Very Nice empanadas, they sound absolutly yummy....I feel you should visit my blog as we appear to have a lot of taste in common. Cheers and thanks for the friendship invite over FoodBuzz . Gracias, Obrigado, Merci :)

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  6. This sounds a lot better than my standard Lean Cuisine - can I visit you at work sometime? :-)

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  7. My friends and I love making empanadas together and usually make them with some kind of meat -- Chicken and corn, Curried Beef and Lobster are our favorites. So, I will definitely give this one a try. Thanks for sharing.

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  8. That sounds amazing! I'm adding it to my "to try" list. Thanks for the recipe.

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  9. These sound really good- a unique flavor combination!

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  10. Those look great! I still have to try out empanadas but maybe I'll try something like this when I do. I like the goat cheese addition.

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  11. What type of salsa did you use?

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  12. I just bought traditional red salsa from trader joe's. I might avoid overly sweet types like pineapple or mango as the maduros are already pretty sweet. I think something with a little heat and the sweetness tomatoes goes nicely with the black beans, goat cheese and plantains!

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Tried my recipe? Please let me know how it turned out for you! Be honest (and kind!)