More Meals for One

Some time ago I posted a series of posts on making meals to serve one person and the huge mileage I got from one little $5.00 rotisserie chicken. Those posts are right here:

http://sammysgrammysneedlin.blogspot.com/2012/06/meals-for-one.html

http://sammysgrammysneedlin.blogspot.com/2012/06/act-ii-of-rotisserie-chicken.html

http://sammysgrammysneedlin.blogspot.com/2012/07/act-iii-of-rotisserie-chicken-chicken.html

These recipes are economical and tasty even if you're preparing meals for more than one. You'll just get less mileage from your ingredients.

I find myself in this position of preparing meals for just one person and it's a challenging change of pace from cooking for a family of five. Thank God, it was gradual so that I could get used to it a step at a time. If you have had kids leave the nest, you know how difficult it seems at the time to make that adjustment of not setting their place at the table and making a little less dinner to accommodate one less person.

With just me to cook for, I am always looking for tasty meals for one and the other day while watching the Food Network I ran across Marcella Valladolid of Mexican Made Easy. On this program she prepared empanadas. I am a big fan of anything Mexican. I downloaded her recipe and made it the very next day. So delicioso ! I flash froze each empanada in it's own little plastic bag so that anytime I feel like having one for lunch or dinner, I just leave it on the counter for a bit then put it in my toaster oven for a quick warm up (in the toaster oven the beautiful crust stays nice and crispy).

Here's Marcella's recipe for ground beef empanadas:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/marcela-valladolid/ground-beef-empanadas-picadillo-recipe.html

I tweaked Marcella's recipe a bit. I added cumin and coriander ground spices to the meat mixture. And instead of using the puff pastry sheets like she did, I found that by using puff pastry shells, you save some steps. The shells are already cut in round shapes, perfect for empanadas. I left the centers intact (which you would remove if you actually wanted them to become a shell). I put each pastry shell on a floured counter and rolled it out to about a 7-8 inch circle, then spooned the filling toward one edge of the circle, then brushed the edges with beaten egg and folded the other half circle over the filling, sealing it by pressing edges with a fork.  Otherwise, I did exactly as the recipe suggests.

       I am going to have one for lunch today along with a small caprese salad and iced tea.