As a family, we try to sit down together every night for dinner. We may not eat until after soccer and girl scout meetings, but we do it! To keep everyone wanting to sit at the table, I try to not be in a rut when it comes to what we eat. I do alot of home baking instead of buying premade things in the store and I just generally try to be a little creative. That brings us to tonight's meal!
Empanadas!!
The beauty of tonight's meal is that I had most everything on hand in my stockpile! I did go buy packaged pie crust. The hubby is sick and was hungry in a hurry... plus I didn't really want to mess with it tonight! :) Here's the skinny:
1 lb ground beef (not pictured)
1 taco dinner kit (Stockpile!)
1 can spicy fat free refried beans (stockpile!)
1/2 cup salsa plus the salsa from the dinner kit
1 pkg Kraft Philly cream cheese (from stockpile!)
1 cup Kraft shredded cheddar cheese (not pictured) (from stockpile!)
2 boxes pie crust (or homemade enough for 4 rounds)
Pre heat oven to 400 degrees. Split taco shells into half and then half again, bake per directions and set aside to use as chips. Prepare taco meat according to package directions. Once meat is prepared, combine beef, beans, salsa (both types), shredded cheese and cream cheese...basically everything but the pie crust! Mix in a large bowl until combined and no large lumps of cream cheese remain. Now, I did these two ways. I made little ones and big ones...
For the little ones , I simply unrolled a pie crust and cookie cut biscuit sized circles. I put about a Tbs. of filling on them and then topped with another round. Then I just pinched the edges shut.! My girls were calling them mexican ravioili.
For the larger ones, I unrolled a pie crust and filled 1/2 and simply folded the crust over and pinched it shut!
In either case, All of the filling is fully cooked or cheese, and all that you are cooking is the crust. Bake for about 20 minutes for the larger ones (10-15 for the smaller) in a 400 degree oven until they are slightly browned. Be careful! The filling will be HOT!! But oh-so-good!
I served them with the "chips", a green salad and the kids' favorite ranch dressing! Everyone ate them up!!
I hope you try them...they are dee-lish!
