Try Something New Tuesday: Empanadas

Living in the West Country I'd actually had pasties on my list of new things to try for MoFo but the fates conspired to give it a little South American twist. Once again it started at the kids cookery club on Saturday. I strolled into the Occombe Farm shop to buy myself lunch and poke through their vegetables and I saw the most wonderful thing: and Acorn squash.

As I'd spent a lot of this month with my nose in Veganomicon I knew I could find more uses for it than roasting (I won't say 'just roasting' because roast squash is too delicious for me to pretend it's anything but magical). I picked the Acorn Squash and Black Bean Enpanadas and got to work at about 10:20 this morning roasting the squash and cooking the beans in the slow cooker.

Don't get me wrong, it didn't take all day or anything. Like the recipe says the time it takes to cook is largely inactive and as I had set aside today to catch up on my preserving I just slotted in the cooking where I could.

After a couple of rolling accidents I was left with these little parcels of pure joy. A fabulous mix of utilitarian pies and silky decadent squash. The sweetness, the nuttiness. Perfect. I just ate a plate full. That was it. And I still have some left for the freezer.