Potluck Empanadas

Potluck was shaping up to be well attended this week (besides our usual crowd, we had a couple fascinating Airbnb hosts and a beard blogger), and what farm share vegetables did we have on hand? Um, onions and potatoes.

But what did we have in the freezer? Goya frozen empanada wrappers!

The name "empanada" comes from the Spanish verb empanar, "to wrap in bread," and empanadas are squarely in the tradition of food improved by being wrapped in pastry. After having made our own pasty dough last month, these frozen wrappers were amazingly easy to work with -- defrost, reroll a bit, fold over the filling, seal with a fork, and wipe with egg wash and sprinkle with coarse salt, if you're feeling fancy. Goya suggested deep-frying them, but as you know, I don't like to cook a la minute when company's coming, so ours went in the oven.
 
Filling number one -- and the star of the show -- was the onion and cheese recipe from this page, of which I was initially very suspicious. (Onions, garlic, honey, and cheese?) So suspicious that Erica caught me carefully following the recipe. (Not actually all that carefully. I couldn't find oregano -- Alex? -- and I substituted goat cheese for mozzarella, and, anyway, I couldn't respect the recipe writer once I realized the "add onions" step was missing.)

Filling number two expanded on the theme of ethnic pastry-wrapped foods with a samosa filling -- potatoes boiled and mashed with a spoonful of garam masala and defrosted frozen peas stirred in.

Filling number three was a vaguely Latin American stir-fried combination of refrigerator odds and ends (black beans, chopped red pepper and zucchini, Tony's seasoning).