For the Love of Food

I'm in here today with one of my favorite people, little Dee Dee Pujols

Isn't she precious? Today, Dee Dee is sharing some of her favorite dishes and the adorable stories

Y'all, this girl gets cuter with age. It makes me sick. Starting off, it's quick and easy South Meets West Quesadillas

What a great fast meal is this. Followed by empanadas and aioli dipping sauce made with Dee Dee's own homemade dough, y'all

I could eat these without nothing else. I know. Finally, I'm fixing Dee Dee my coconut whoopee pies

So let's get going, y'all. Because the quicker we get it done, the quicker we're going to get to eat them

I am in here in my kitchen today, y'all, with one of my favorite people in the whole entire world

Dee Dee Pujols. Now, I bet you're saying, how do I know that name

Because of Albert, you think? My husband, yeah, he's from the top of the town

Albert is as dear and sweet as Dee Dee is, and he's one of the world's greatest baseball players

My children think he hung the moon. And I kind of think Dee Dee hung the moon

Thank you. Look how adorable she is, y'all. Now, this girl's got four children

Yes, ma'am. And look at her. and she still has a chance to get in the kitchen and cook for these kids

Well, we are fixing to make South Meets West quesadillas. So Albert is from the Dominican, so you do a lot of this style of cooking, don't you

Yes, ma'am. For Albert. And you're from Kansas City. Yes. My husband's always singing that song, Kansas City

I'm going to Kansas City and get me a pretty woman. That's where we are

Go ahead, big boy. just buy a one-way ticket's all i got to say to you all right now you have diced up a purple onion

yes ma'am now we're going to put it in a little olive oil and saute it off until it's soft so

you can go ahead and put that in i was going to ask to borrow your um onion glasses because i'm

already about to cry oh my gosh is it too late it's too late because i keep them i keep them

right there in that drawer yeah you know i bought a pair after i left here last time did you really

Because of you. Well, if you'd have told me I'd have sent you home with mine, I'll watch that

And if you'd come over here, we've got some jack and some cheddar cheese over here

We've got some cilantro. So if you don't mind chopping on that, I'd appreciate it

I'll take care of the onions. And Dee Dee, I think about you all the time

Thanks. Since I left here, some of the funniest things have happened. Like what

We were at the All-Star Game in Anaheim last year. And now we're on this red carpet in the back of a truck

And as we're driving, I'm not kidding you, probably a half a dozen people would scream out

We love you. I saw you on Paula. No. I'm like, they don't care about Albert

Or nothing that's happening with baseball. They're excited about cooking. You know why they love you

Why? Because you don't pretend to be somebody you're not. What you see is what you get

And everybody asks me that. How is she? How is she? I'm like, exactly what you see

Yes. Thank y'all. All right. So before I cry. I found out something about Dee Dee

She grew up a big Wonder Woman fan. When she was a little girl, she used to dress up like Wonder Woman

And I want you to throw your leg up here, sister. Look at this

She has gone and got her a Wonder Woman tattoo. Look at those cute little toes

Wonder Woman blue? I'm going to do mine in blue next time

Guys, if y'all can, look at this. She brought me a Wonder Woman cookie jar

Jack is going to adore it. I can't wait until he sees it

I wish I was here when he saw it. Jack is going to adore Wonder Woman

All right, now, Dee Dee, these are nice and soft, so I'm going to take them out, and I've got some leftover pulled pork

And I'm just going to heat it up a little bit. Look how good this looks

Just run it around in the pan, and now I'm going to pour it back in the bowl

Do your kids get in the kitchen with you, Dee Dee? Oh, yeah. They do

Yeah. Now, unless I'm making something big, then I make everybody get out. Yeah. My husband has a problem

When I'm cooking, he'll lift the lids on my pots, especially if it's rice

I like it nice and tight. And he takes it off and never puts the lid back on right, so I do not let him in while I'm cooking

And in our skillet, I'm going to add a little butter, and I've got a flour tortilla

I love flour versus corn. I love flour tortillas. I do, too

Homemade one. I don know how to make them homemade I going to show you next episode Come back and we do it My grandmother who has since passed away probably about six years ago used to make homemade tortillas No Was it hard And it was made with lard so you know it was good

Oh, my goodness, with lard. So put us some cheese in there, baby girl

And a little cilantro. Now I'm going to just fold that over, Dee Dee

And you know what? I'm going to put a little bit more butter in there

And I'm going to get my little pig press and just put it down on it

And it won't take but just a minute or so. That looks so good

What a great fast meal is this. Ooh, look at there, Dee Dee

That is so perfect. That extra little butter helped. Alrighty. Looks delicious

All right. Now there's one for you. Thanks, ma'am. And if you'd give us a little sour cream

And I would like mine right there, please. Thank you. Perfect for the children

Pretty good. Cheese oozing in there. Mm-hmm. You like it? It's awesome

That pork is delicious. Isn't it good? You think Albert would like it

Mm-hmm. I do, ma'am. Mmm. And I am so excited you shared this with me

but I cannot wait to show you what I do for Albert. I'm going to show you how to make a homemade empanada

Yum. Up next, it's time for DeeDee's special homemade empanadas, y'all. There is nothing like fresh tasting homemade dough

I can't wait. And later, let's make some whoopie. With our coconut whoopie pies

I'm in here today with one of my favorite people, little Dee Dee Pujols

Isn't she precious? And she is wife to Albert Pujols, which I'm sure you recognize the name

Huge, one of the best baseball players in the world today. And so she has to do a lot of cooking

And one of the things she's going to show us next is her homemade empanadas. Yes

I'm going to mix the dry ingredients. Okay. Well, I'll give you the wet ingredients to mix. Okay

And it's so simple. I'm going to have you do 3 4th cup of chicken stock

Okay. With one egg. Okay. And you're going to just whisk that together

Whisk that together. And that's it. That's all for the wet ingredients

I can do that. And while you're doing that, I'm going to scoop me 3 cups of flour

And that's all-purpose flour, GD? This is all-purpose flour. Okie dokie. Next, we have baking powder

We use one tablespoon. Okay. And this gives it an incredible fluff when it fries

Yes. And we know you like to fry. I do like to fry

We have a pinch of salt that will go in here. Okay. And two teaspoons of sugar

So it's going to give it just a little bit of a sweet taste

Now we're going to add a half a cup of vegetable shortening. Okay. After Diddy cuts in our shortening, I'm just going to add our wet ingredients

That was one egg, y'all, and three-fourths cup of chicken broth. These must be really delicious for you to make them from scratch

Why do you do that? Making them from scratch, you know, if you make anything homemade, it's going to be better

But there's good store-bought stuff out there, but I think it's worth it. When you have something that tastes this good, you want to make it

I can't wait. You want to make it homemade. I can't wait to taste these

So now I'm just going to grab it. And I need it in the bowl because of the pieces that are on the side

That's the only true way to get it really mixed up is just get in there with your hands, isn't it

You're going to want it chilled because it rolls out so much nicer

Yeah. If it's. If you try to do it when it's like this, you're going to be too sticky

All right. Now, the hardest part of this recipe, it looks like, y'all, is unwrapping the plastic wrap

There we go. Looks so good. So, sorry. Excuse me

So drop that on there. Okay. We'll wrap it up. Throw that bad boy in the fridge

Okay. Just stick it right in that refrigerator. And we're going to let it chill for about an hour

So, Paula, I'm going to pull our dough that we made, reach down the cool tunnel

Okay. And we'll start rolling out our dough. Y'all, this girl gets cuter with age

It makes me sick. All right. So, we have our dough. And I'm not like any kind of specialist with the roller here

You're a better roller than I am. Okay. Well, move out of the way and I'll roll for you

We want the dough rolled out to be about a fourth of an inch thick Okie doke Now Paula you could also break the dough in little balls and work with the balls You know and I think that what I going to do Dee Dee

Do it. Because we've only got so much space. So I'll throw that over there

And that'll give us a little bit more room. And these are a great size cutter for if you're going to do like an appetizer

And they'll fry better. Yes, because by the time you fold them over, you know, they're going to be T-90

Is that about right, you think? That's perfect. I think that looks like a quarter of an inch

We can get quite a few out of that. All right, let's see. There's your one

Now, the nice thing is, Paula, is that the store-bought empanada dough is very decent

It's very good. It is. And if you don't have a lot of time, that's the way to go, I understand

But there is nothing like fresh tasting homemade dough. I can't wait

You know, I think if it's worth eating, it's worth doing yourself

And y'all, Dee Dee's got some of her spicy beef filling that's made with peppers, onions, chili powder, and other spices, along with tomato paste and beef

Now you can find this recipe at foodnetwork.com, or just use your own filling with this amazing dough

You just put it in there like so and fold it over. We're working in tight quarters

Yes, we are. But I love being close to you. You know, we got this whole kitchen, and she and I are right up here

Almost like we're attached at the hip. Yum. Yeah, it's good. Look at this empanada, y'all

That is so pretty. You can imagine once it fries and puffs all up

Yum. Don't go anywhere because you're going to get to see me and Dee Dee eat these

While we wish I was here. Up next, we get to taste these amazing empanadas

Dee Dee, that crust is bad to the bone. And later, our coconut whoopie pies make for the cutest dessert

Looks like snowballs to it. We are dropping Dee Dee's homemade empanadas

Yes, we are. Into the basket, ready to go in the fryer. We got it set at 350

These are beautiful. So perfect. And you know, I bet you could put these in the freezer raw

If you have extras and want to have them for later, put them in a baggie and throw them in the freezer

All right, now I see you got something to dip. Yeah, what I've made here is a little aioli sauce

Who? An aioli. An aioli, yes. Aioli. I can't. An aioli sauce

I think she's smart-mouthing me. Never. I have about a cup of mayo, two tablespoons of chipotle, and lime juice in there

Yeah, and you've got some lime zest on top. This is beautiful dough, Dee Dee

It is. Okay, I can see why you make your dough from scratch

Yeah, those are nice. Because this is pretty, pretty dough. So look at that

Look at that crust, y'all. Oh, my gosh. Woo-hoo! I can't wait

Mmm. Oh, my gosh. That aioli sauce is so good. Dee Dee, that crust is bad to the bone, baby

Wow. Makes me excited. Oh, let's have... I could eat these without nothing in them

I know. But before we fill up, let's get started on our coconut whoopie pies for dessert

You ready? I cannot believe. Like, when I think of whoopie pie, I think of you

Do you? So, I want to make some whoopie. Okay, let's make some whoopie

All right, if you'll start with the dry ingredients, We need two and a quarter cup of all-purpose flour, half a teaspoon of salt, two teaspoons of baking powder

So while you're doing that, I'm going to come down here, and in my bowl, I'm going to add a half a stick of butter, three quarters of a cup of sugar

and I'm going to measure out three tablespoons of vegetable shortening. You know, this is for people that can't make up their mind

if they like vegetable shortening of butter, so you just use both

You ever had a day like that? I have a lot of days like that

Now, I'm going to beat this. So I'm creaming this up. And if you would, why don't you go ahead and measure out a teaspoon of vanilla and add

it into our 3 fourths cup of coconut milk. And if you would break me one egg into here and then I need just the white to another egg Oh sure And I going to go ahead and dump it on in

Now we're just going to alternate our flour along with our milk

So you can put about half of that dry in here. There you go

I like your pink mixer. Isn't that pretty? All right. Now, if you just pour that coconut milk, Dee Dee

and then do the spatula thing. We do a lot of coconut in our house

Oh, I bet. I love coconut. I adore coconut. When you're in the Dominican

you can just be driving down the road, and these coconut trees are everywhere. I never will forget the first coconut cake I ever made

I went and bought me a coconut, and I got out my hammer

I beat the hell out of that coconut. He wound up in the street

In the neighbor's yard And for some reason I couldn't get my grandma

Paul on the phone And I kept calling her and finally I got her on the phone

And she said Paula Ann You have to put them in the oven and heat them up

I've never heard that Yes Alright Now I'm going to come back here

And I'm going to get Our baking sheets and I've got them lined with a silicon sheet on this so they won't stick

So what we're going to do is put, let's see, I think maybe six

I love the ice cream. Will be right. Yes, isn't that perfect? Oh, my gosh

We're going to put our coconut. That looks tall. On top of that batter

Looks like snowballs, doesn't it? I'm so... And we're going to bake these at 375 for about 12 minutes

And we can get about two sheets worth of this batter, y'all

Get it, girl. I'm not going to lick it yet. I'll lick it

I'll put it for you. I'll get the bowl when nobody's looking. Coming up, we may just forget our manners when we taste these whoopie pies, y'all

Oh, Amoli, you think it's good? Hey, y'all

We got our whoopie pies out of the oven. They look wonderful, don't they

Look how big they made. That's gonna be a big pie, Dee Dee. I can't wait

All right, let's hurry up and get this filling, because the quicker we get it done, the quicker we're going to get to eat them

I've got one and a half sticks, softened butter. If you just throw that in my bowl, and I'm going to measure out a half a cup of marshmallow cream

Now, I'm going to just beat this until it's kind of smooth

And if you throw in a cup of confectionate sugar and a fourth of a teaspoon of coconut and a half a teaspoon of vanilla flavoring and two tablespoons of our light coconut milk

And I'm going to turn this sucker up and whip it like it stole something

And then a half a cup of flaked coconut. All right. Let's talk, girl

I'll come hither. Dee Dee and Albert are just fine, good people

and they do so much work to help in the Dominican Republic

Tell everybody what you and Albert do. Well, we go on behalf of our foundation

which is called the Pujols Family Foundation. The mission for the foundation is to encourage families

who have children with Down syndrome and to help impoverished communities. And so we've been able to do that for the last almost seven years now

and it's been quite incredible. That's just wonderful. That is beautiful, Dee Dee. Aw

That is beautiful. All right, so like there's your half, and here's my half, and look at here

I like that you put coconut on the top and bottom. Yes, all right, turn that thing sideways

Cheers. I had fun. Thank you for having me. I always have so much fun with you

Oh, camole. You think it's good? I don't think we should share it

Well, thanks so much, and I know the Dominican just adores y'all

Thank goodness for people like you and Albert. Here. Well, you ain't bad yourself

Well, thank you