Happy National Empanada Day!

Today is National Empanada Day! When I woke up this morning I was not aware of this fact, but after I learned about it late morning I knew that empanadas had to be on tonight's menu. I had already decided that I would be trying out a new tostado recipe from my Food Network Magazine for dinner, so how could I not stay with the mexican theme and make empanandas? On top of all of that I had an empanada recipe in my new issue of Food Network Magazine! What luck!

(On a side note, I'm absolutely obsessed with Food Network Magazine. If I was Oprah it would definitely be on my favorite things list!)

So, I set out on an empanada adventure. I had never actually made them before, but they seemed relatively easy. The recipe did call for a few things I didn't already have, such as frozen empanada wrappers & guave paste. Thank God for Wegmans' international section!

I headed off to Pittsford Wegmans for the key ingredients. I was a bit surprised to find out how guava paste is supplied & what a large quantity you must buy, but I had already committed to this recipe, so there was no going back now!

Guava paste... who knew?

To give you a better idea of how massive this thing is I took a picture of it next to my hand:

Who needs this much guava paste?!

I continued to be surprised by guava paste upon opening the can:

Congealed guava

Regardless of all of my guava paste confusion I continued on my empanada making mission.

1 tablespoon guava paste

1 tablespoon cream cheese & lime mixture

Voila!

There were 10 empanada wrappers in the package & I had a whole lotta guava & cream cheese, so I decided to make all 10 and freeze 8 of them. I refrigerated 2 of them for dessert & planned to fry them up right before eating.

The tostados were not perfect, but like most mexican food they were yummy. They were also pretty.

Tostado with my Skinny Girl Margarita in the back!

After dinner it was time to fry up the empanadas! I browned them a little too much, but that's how I roll.

Empanada & vanilla ice cream

At this point I still hadn't told Peter what was inside of the empanadas. I started to worry that the paste wasn't going to melt at all inside, so I decided to test it out before he dug into it. Just as I suspected- the guava cube was intact!

Guava cube!

As soon as I saw the guava cube I knew I should've put the paste in the food processor with the cream cheese mixture. I double checked the recipe & it really does just have you put the straight paste on the dough! Ridiculous! (FYI: I googled some other guava paste recipes & some do have you putting the paste in a food processor!!! Grrr!)

Dessert still must be eaten!

In the end, the guava empanadas were still tasty and not a 100% failure (and I have 8 more in my freezer if anyone would like to come over & give 'em a try)! Although, there was one other minor incident with regards to my mexican dessert...

After dinner Peter said, "I wasn't gonna mention it, but did you taste the powdered sugar you put on the empanadas?" I said, "NO! Was something wrong with it?!" He responded, "It was flour." Damn! Apparently I'm still quite a ways form being the next Betty Crocker! I'm not giving up yet though!