Buffalo Pockets

These little bread pockets are similar to the commercially available Hot Pockets in your grocery stores. But these are just a little more delicious and not as expensive. I start off with ground buffalo meat. It’s really lean and has a slightly different texture than beef.

Ground buffalo

I brown this in a frying pan. The spices I use are turmeric, black pepper, herbs de provenance, smoked paprika, onion powder and minced garlic. I add some freshly chopped thyme just as the meat is done.

Buffalo meat in the pan.

What little grease is in the pan is soaked up by the addition of finely crushed walnuts. You can add as much or as little as you want, but I don’t like greasy foods that drip. So I use the walnuts to soak up the grease and get the meat drier.

Lots of cheese

Next I add a lot of shredded cheese. Once you add a bit of cheese, add some more because what you added was not enough. There’s no such thing as too much cheese. Only a Godless heathen doesn’t like cheese — except for those unfortunate individuals that are lactose intolerant. If you are — then substitute chèvre — goat cheese…. I noticed that folks who are lactose intolerant can actually digest chèvre with no problem. If you can’t eat cheese just ignore this blog and read something else. It’ll break your heart missing out on this deliciousness.

Crescent rolls

The case for these meat and cheese filled goodness happens to be crescent rolls from a cardboard tube. For the more fastidious, you can make your own dough, but in this case I just wanted to make a quick easy dish that’s not complicated.

Crescents rolls

I unrolled the dough and cut along the lines.

Forming the pockets

I scoop in a bit of the spiced meat and dabbled on yet more cheese. Remember — there’s no such thing as too much cheese. Roll those puppies up as good as you can into little balls of flavor excellence.

Dough balls in the pan

I preheat the oven to about 375*F, or whatever the instructions on the tube say. I bake the pockets according to the instructions on the tube until they are golden brown.

Baked pockets

Look at that plate of delicious tasting goodness. It’s so easy to make these, and I call them Buffalo Pockets because I use buffalo meat in them. About half way through the baking, I love to coat them in a compound butter made with garlic, thyme, and fresh parsley. I actually have a blog on how to make compound butter you can read about in another post. That’s what you see here. Fresh chopped parsley from the compound butter.

The pocket ready to eat

The great thing about these pockets is how much you can change the filling. You can put in shredded chicken, or ground pork, ground turkey or lamb. You can change the spices and change the flavor. With a cream filling with raisins and some frosting you can even turn these into a dessert. Try raspberry filling, blueberry filling….. your imagination is the limit.