Adventures in cooking/getting creative with left-overs

There's a new Cuban restaurant in my neighborhood and I recently tried one of their empanadas. It was delicious. So then I was craving empanadas...

Late last week, I decided I wanted to at least try to have something that was similar in flavor so I made a concoction out of ground beef, some left-over olive tapenade, raisins, peas, and all kinds of spices (I read through some recipes and, as I believe recipes are merely suggestions and/or starting points, I picked and chose which spices sounded good: cinnamon, cloves, cumin, etc.). I added that mixture to some rice pilaf and had a good dinner but there was A LOT left over. Tupperware...

Last night for Sunday dinner/game night, I made artichokes with a Hollandaise sauce for dipping. Also quite good but after lots of games and laughter, there was still lots of Hollandaise sauce left over. Hmm...

What do you do with left-over faux-empanada filling and a bunch of Hollandaise sauce? Well, you improvise and you make actual empanadas. If you are me, that is.

So here's what I did: I found a simple empanada dough recipe (for baking since I don't have a fryer) and I substituted buttery eggy Hollandaise sauce for the lard and an egg yolk the recipe called for. Then I used the rest of sauce beaten with an egg to brush the empanadas before I baked them (instead of just egg).

The results are actually quite delicious. I am very happy with them. Now I just need to find enough people to eat all of them!

Empanadas anyone?