Squishy squash
Flipping through the veganomicon acorn squash & black bean empanadas begged for my attention, but was the time and effort worth it?
Of the few dishes I’ve now made from this cookbook this was by far not only the most time consuming, but the most out of my comfort zone. Squash… I’ve never cooked it, never bought it, in fact my only childhood memory of the plant is that it’s used in the midwest as a type of decoration for the fall. Mother would never approve of taking that precious basket of squash on the porch and cooking it, what would the neighbors think!
Slicing the Acorn squash in half reveals a bright orange center similar to that of cracking open a very small pumpkin. Although the contrast of colors works much better orange against a dark green skin vs orange on orange… win for acorn squash come on pumpkin that’s like if I wore a skin colored shirt and thought it looked good on me. Scooping out the seeds was painless and once again reminded me of the fall tradition of scooping out pumpkin seeds. Again acorn squash wins… not messy at all. Pop it in the oven for 50 minutes and were roasting. Look at me roasting vegetables for the first time…. erm I mean fruit, apologies science gods.
Now time for a relaxing break while the squash cooks, incorrect. Now its time to make the dough, a little flour, salt, shortening (vegetable), water, sugar and we’ve got some dough that needs to be rolled out and chilled for an hour. Time to slice up and cook the veggies and my favorite ingredient which seems to be common in the recipes I’ve chosen so far jalapeno. To be honest I do prefer serrano peppers but after cooking down the jalapeno and onions for a bit I was having a coughing fit as I inhaled a lungful of the spicy filled air. Odd that I find that slightly enjoyable… really its just because I’m excited for the spiciness of the food to come.
After almost dying in the kitchen (could you imagine the headline? Death from jalapeno smoke!) it was time to pull the squash out of the oven. I’d have to say I roasted the shit out of that squash and I was really proud. I actually think I cooked it a tad too long as it didn’t keep its cube form after cutting and placing with the rest of the food. Not my fault though, blaming it on the oven as I took it out 10 minutes earlier than the recipe said to. Plus I’m pretty awesome so I doubt much can really be my fault.
Filling complete now was the fun part. The dough gets sliced into small 3″ squares which are then rolled into 6″ squares and filled with about 2 tablespoons of squash / veggie / bean mix, folded in half and placed on a baking sheet. Time to relax now? Nope. Two empenadas go in the oven and cook while I prepare the rest for their inevitable fate of carbon freezing aka the freezer. Side note: How sweet would it be if they tested carbon freezing empenadas before throwing Han Solo down there? Super special edition empire strikes back? Please George you know were all waiting for it.
Twenty minutes later I get to enjoy my first empenada, and it was worth it. I will say for the time I invested it was not up to par with the other things I’ve made out of the cook book, also these babies are time sensitive for sure after cooling for about 30 minutes the dough went a little soft and the filling didn’t seem to retain its flavor. I would also recommend serving with some sort of cool topping to offset the heat (both temperature and spiciness) such as the vegan sour cream, quac, or even vegenaise.
Will I make it again….. maybe but I’ve still got what 247 more recipes to go through and I don’t think this one is a clear winner.
