Lorence's Goat Cheese Empanadas

A coworker recently made a "hummus" of sorts, an interesting concoction of chickpeas, oil-packed sun dried tomotoes, garlic and goat cheese. I was heating up my lunch in the work kitchen's microwave and flipping through a copy of "Real Simple" magazine when she offered me a taste. I really enjoyed the intense flavor and creamy texture and immediately flipped back a couple of pages inthe magazine to a recipe I had just seen, Goat Cheese Empanadas (can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/3snfv7w). I knew what I had to do...

So tonight I combined the two recipes and made a third to accompany my creation, a roasted corn salsa.

Here's what I did:

Ingredients:

2 cloves of garlic

4 oz oil packed sun dried tomatoes

1 can chickpeas (drained/rinsed)

4 oz goat cheese

olive oil

refrigerated pie crust, 2 crusts (make your own if you have the time)

Method:

In a food processor, process the garlic, tomatoes, chickpeas and goat cheese and add the olive oil until it reaches a smooth hummus like consistency.

Roll out the pie crusts.

Using a 3-inch round cookie cutter, cut circles from the 2 refrigerated crusts.

Put about a teaspoon of the hummus in the center of each round.

(I rolled out the scraps of dough and made more rounds to stuff!)

Lightly dot the edges of the dough with water, fold in half, and press with a fork to seal.

Bake on a foil or parchment lined baking sheet at 375ºF until golden, 20 to 25 minutes.

Serve with fresh made Roasted Corm Salsa, found on Taste of Home.

The roasted corn, fresh off of the grill:

Enjoy!

Lorence