Picadillo Empanadas

I have been craving Picadillo for a few months now. I don't know how I've been craving something I've never tasted but that happens to me frequently; I see recipe or picture of something and decide I just have to make that. When I came home from MU J had frozen about 8 oz. of ground beef so I decided that picadillo would be just the way to use that. I stumbled across a recipe for light picadillo empanadas on myrecipes.com in the Cooking Light section. I love that magazine! I'm terrible at actually following recipes when it's something so throw together so I tried to write down what I was doing as it came to me last night. So here it is my version of Picadillo Empanadas.

1/2 lb. ground beef
2 carrots finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
1/3 red onion finely chopped
1/3 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup manzanilla olives roughly chopped
1/2 can tomato paste
1/2 red pepper finely chopped

1/8 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp paprika
4 dashes Tabasco
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp chili powder
salt and pepper to taste
splash of white wine
olive oil

1 can refrigerated pizza dough or your own pizza dough plus flour and cooking spray

1. Put about 2-3 tsp of olive oil in a pan on medium high heat. Add the carrots, garlic, and red onions. Cook until onions are translucent.

2. Add the red pepper, the first 4 spices and cook until the mixture just starts to stick. Deglaze pan with wine and add the tomato paste.

3. Add the raisins, olives and ground beef and chili powder and cook the beef thoroughly. Add salt and pepper to taste. Remove bay leaf.

4. Preheat oven to 435 degrees. On a lightly floured surface, unroll dough and divide into four squares. Stretch the parts to form squares (four equal sides).

5. Spray cookie sheet with cooking spray. Place each square on the cookie sheet. Fill half of each square with 1/3 cup of the picadillo. You will have about a cup leftover. There are endless possibilities for the leftovers. Fold each empanada over diagonally and press the edges of the dough together to seal.

6. Spray top of each empanada lightly with cooking spray. Bake in the oven for 15 min.




J didn't really like this but I thought they were yummy. He thought it needed cheese. Personally it wouldn't be picadillo if you added cheese. If you are trying to eat healthy just eat one. I think you could use any type of meat. Enjoy!