February, my bloggy friends, was a really terrible month in ways large and small around here. I, for one, am glad to see the last of it.

To celebrate the coming of spring and the end of a stressful winter I have been buying garden seeds, leafing through the endless catalogs showcasing this year's new varieties in annuals (despite my constant intention to use more perennials I am regularly seduced by the flash and color of the here-today-gone-tomorrow) and learning the ins and outs of my brand-new (to me - a virtual friend bought it and never used it and so very generously gifted me) dehydrator. Oh, and Brainiac bought me a meat grinder - yes, it's true. Odd and true, come to think of it, but that's the kind of spur-of-the-moment guy he is and I'm happy to have another toy to entertain me in the kitchen.

Now, about that cornmeal. Because there's not much I'm willing to buy food-wise if it only has one use (the notable exception to this is my zester which is pretty much only good for zesting but is so spectacularly good at it that I forgive its monotasking nature) I wanted to find more uses for cornmeal besides just making the odd bit of cornbread or muffins. Cornmeal is fairly new to me as an ingredient and pantry-staple so imagine my surprise to find out that it's actually flexible, not to mention useful. Within the space of a few days upon setting out to find more uses for the quite large quantity I purchased for the cornbread I made cornmeal waffles, empanadas, and spoon bread (sort of a cross between a pudding and cornbread). Each was delicious and worth sharing.

The empanadas in particular are easy and quite tasty. Not only are they good for using up leftovers because they can take up almost any kind of meat, veggies, fruit or cheese (I used thick leftover black bean soup and grated cheddar cheese), but they can be frozen unbaked - making them great for last minute meals and fast-food avoidance. You can make lots of teeny-tiny ones in advance of a party or large ones to serve as an entree with perhaps a green salad. They can be savory or sweet and if you happen to have kids around who like working with play clay, as I do, you can enlist them to help and in no time you'll have a couple dozen ready for baking or freezing.

To produce a good number of empanadas (how many you make from this recipe will depend upon the size you make them), mix one cup each corn meal and all-purpose flour. Add in 1 teaspoon each of baking powder and salt and blend well. Melt a quarter cup of butter and add to the flour mixture along with a half-cup of water. Mix the dough thoroughly - it should be soft, but not sticky and easily pliable. Add a bit more flour or water as needed, and then knead the dough by hand for two minutes. To make an empanada, pinch off some dough - I used a bit about the size of a golf ball - and press it into your palm so that it's flattened into a disk. Place your filling inside (for this amount of dough, this would be about a tablespoon of filling, but you may need to experiment a bit) and fold the disk over so that a little crescent-shaped "pie" results. Put the empanada down on a prepared cookie sheet and press the seal closed with the tines of a fork. Brush with an egg and water wash. At this point, the empanadas may be frozen on the sheet and moved to a bag when solid, or baked at 375 for about 25 minutes, or until golden and hollow sounding when tapped.

For fillings, pretty much anything goes. I used leftover black bean soup and grated cheddar cheese, as I said, but you can chop up some cooked steak and mix in some sauteed onions or maybe some mushrooms and thyme would be nice. For sweet empanadas, stewed apples are lovely, as it pumpkin butter (sprinkle a just bit of sugar on top of sweet ones for added crunch and flavor).

Like so many of the best things to eat, empanadas have cousins from all over the world. Ravioli, pirogies, piroshky, pyrizhky, and any number of dumplings are all evidence of cooks' zeal to package up bits and pieces of things in pastry. Given the general lack of authenticity in my own recipe, but for the cornmeal (for which one may substitute a second cup of flour), what we have here can be called more or less accurately any number of things. No matter what you decide to call yours, enjoy them, for seldom will a recipe allow so much leeway for such a consistently delicious result.