Our culinary tour to Argentina and Chile was amazing. Memories of fantastic grass-fed and finished beef in Argentina paired with lots of Malbec wine. Chile's seafood and Carmenere wines were delightful. One of the cooking classes we did was an empanada cooking class. These beef filled turnovers paired with a salad make a great meal and they freeze well. So, download the recipe, make up a grocery list and get a few people together with some Malbec wine, of course and have your own empanada making cooking class!
First a bit about the flour I use:
This recipe features flour from Sunny Boy in Camrose. For many, the name Sunny Boy is synonymous with Sunny Boy Cereal – a cereal that many Canadians grew up with. It’s a type of porridge that was formulated back in 1929, by Mr. W H Byers who owned a flour mill in Camrose. He used local grains to first produce whole wheat flour and then started producing Sunny Boy Cereal. In 2008, Patricia and Brad Shapka purchased Sunny Boy. Thank goodness that they did, as Sunny Boy was struggling financially and could have disappeared. Not only have the Shapka’s increased the product line, they also produce, store and distribute their products from Camrose – quite a change from how grain products historically have been handled – and that’s usually been, shipping grain out of province for processing, storage and shipping it back into province for retail distribution, resulting in huge travel miles from seed to table.
unny Boy products include regular and organic hot cereal, whole wheat pancake mix, organic whole wheat pancake and waffle mix, complete buttermilk pancake mix, and my favourite -- organic whole wheat flour and organic unbleached all purpose flour. A variety of the products are available at Planet Organic, Sobeys, Safeway, Save-on Foods and Costco. Each store may carry different products.
Keeping up with recipes gleaned from my recent culinary tour Argentina and Chile, here is a recipe for empanadas -- a dish that is synonymous with both counties. I’ve made these empanadas using Sunny Boy Organic all Purpose Unbleached Flour that I purchase at Planet Organic.