Bag Lunch: Chicken, Chorizo, and Olive Empanadas

Life is a little crazy right now, hence my totally neglecting this poor little blog. I mentioned making these empanadas WEEKS ago and I can't believe I've held off on posting about it for so long. These are too good to keep to myself. They're a little involved, but they're a great project for a chilly Sunday afternoon when you have some time on your hands. I used this recipe, but ignored the directions to double the dough. You basically have to decide what you'd rather have: extra dough or extra filling.

Make the dough before you get started on the filling. That way it has a chance to sit in the fridge for an hour.

Here are my seasoned chicken legs browning in my fantastic skillet. If you don't have a skillet, go out and get one from Target right now. Don't even finish reading this post. Just buy a skillet. It will make everything you make in it cook and taste 100x better. And I suppose you could swap out boneless skinless chicken breast here, but only if you want something that doesn't taste very good.

Remove the chicken from the skillet.

Saute onions, garlic, and bay leaves for a few minutes before adding paprika and chorizo to the pan to brown (I used spicy Italian sausage because I couldn't get my hands on chorizo).

Add olives, wine, and broth to skillet and bring to a boil before nestling the chicken legs back in the pan. Let the chicken cook in the skillet for about 30 minutes.

Remove the chicken and bay leaves from the mixture to cool. Once the chicken is cool, remove the skin and bones and chop the meat. Add the meat back to the skillet and let the filling cool for about 30 minutes.

I'll just let the recipes guide you on filling instructions, but basically you divide your dough in half, form balls, flatten into disks, and fill with about two tablespoons of filling (which you'll have leftovers of, but will eat over rice for dinner and love just as much as your empanadas). Below is sort of what they should (or can) look like. You can also crimp the edges with a fork if you don't want to get fancy like I did. Brush the tops with egg wash and pop them in the oven.

After about 25 minutes in a 400 degree oven you get beautiful, brown empanadas. These keep really well in the fridge, and they're good cold or quickly warmed in the oven (or microwave). Two empanadas and a side salad make a great lunch.

Notice the flaky crust and moist filling. These are a delicious blend of sweet, savory, and a little spicy. I made them for lunch, and they'd obviously be great for dinner, but if you made them a little smaller they'd make great appetizers!

Bag Lunch: Orzo Salad

I gleaned most of my cooking skills from logging hours of watching the Food Network. This recipe came from an episode of Everyday Italian I watched in college, and it is so reliably delicious that I still make it, more than five years later.

I modified things a bit to work with what I had, so there was no mint in my salad, I added chicken, and used a store-bought balsamic vinaigrette. But, if you have the time, I definitely recommend making the red wine vinaigrette that's part of the recipe. There was just something missing from my salad without the zing of the red wine vinegar.

Since I ate this salad all week, I kept a large container of the orzo, chickpeas, onion, and chicken in the fridge and each day added tomatoes, basil, and dressing to the portion I planned to eat for lunch. Cut tomatoes get mealy fast, chopped basil and mint will turn brown after a while, and dressing will make orzo (or any pasta, for that matter) soggy when it sits too long, so either eat this salad right away or keep the delicate ingredients separate!

Here's the salad looking much more attractive in the natural light. My kitchen makes everything a sickly yellow.

Bag Lunch: Chicken Souvlaki

Living in New York and working in publishing could sound glamorous, but the reality is that I live in an extremely expensive city on very little money (think Friends when Rachel was a waitress, except I don't have a closet, a dinosaur-loving boyfriend who can pay for everything, or an apartment in the Village that's rent-controlled). I'm a pretty creative person, though, (read: penny-pinching) and make it a point to keep things interesting for myself by creating delicious bag lunches. I have some more involved posts brewing, but for now, take a peek into my lunch bag.

This week (and, I confess, last's week's) meal is chicken "souvlaki." Why the quotes? Because I'm pretty sure any recipe for souvlaki that you copy out of Real Simple magazine isn't going to be considered authentic Greek. That being said, this is an inexpensive, fast, and (most important) tasty lunch.

Modify this however you want. I've subbed out English cucumbers for Kirby cucumbers and (in the past) mint for dill. The end result is cool, creamy, and crunchy. It's a perfect meal for when you can't stand the thought of turning on the stove and you just need to take out your work rage on a helpless rotisserie chicken and some unsuspecting vegetables.

Here's the recipe. (Disclaimer: Photo on my page taken with my iPhone.)