Mini-vaca and Empanadas…

Cube 4 chicken breasts rather small and add salt, pepper, lime juice, chili powder, adobo seasoning and fajita seasoning.  Let this sit while you prepare the diced red onion, garlic, capers, and olives.

Mix these four ingredients into a bowl, and then saute’ over medium heat until slightly translucent.  Next, add your chicken that has been marinating. 

Once cooked, take off the heat and let cool completely. 

The dough was rather easy, and I DON’T do well with baking…Simply at 3 cups of flour to 1 teaspoon of salt in a bowl.  In a second bowl, whisk 1 egg, and 1 egg white with a teaspoon of vinegar. 

Cut in 3 teaspoons of shortening, and then mix the wet and dry mixture together, being careful to not over knead.  Once a nice ball is formed, wrap in plastic and place in the fridge for an hour.  While this was chilling and my meat was cooling, I made my famous dipping sauce that my whole family loves. 
Three spoonfulls of mayo, 2 spoonfulls of sour cream, 2 cloves of garlic grated on a micro-grater, kosher salt, pepper, smoked paprika and cayenne pepper and 2 green onions finely chopped make this sauce a WIN!

Next I prepared my squash by simply peeling, cubing, and adding salt, pepper and a touch of cayenne as well as minced garlic and shallots.  I roasted the squash for about 35 minutes at 350 degrees.  At 25 minutes, I added half a can of diced tomatoes as well as chopped green onion and cooked the remaining 10 minutes.  YUM!

Now it was time to roll out the dough and start assembling my empanadas!

(I used a martini glass to cut these out, worked perfectly!!)

Make sure not to overstuff, and crimp with a fork to keep your stuff from pouring out!

Brush with an egg wash, and sprinkle with chili powder and ciliantro for color!  I baked for about 35 minutes at 350 degrees!

Here is the complete meal (apologies for the paper plates, after 2 hours of cooking I didn’t feel like doing more dishes, LOL), with doctored up refried beans…added some smoked paprika, garlic, salt, pepper and cilantro for awesome flavor!!!

Thanks for hanging in there for this long post!!!  Hope you all have a wonderful week!!!