On a quiet, uneventful Easter Sunday, I got up early and began cooking beef for empanadas, only to realize I didn’t have any dough. I usually buy it from a Latino market, but since it’s far from where we live, that’s a trip I only make once or twice a year. Not wanting to waste the meat I had already prepared, I decided to make the dough myself. I enlisted the help of my son, who happens to be crazy about empanadas.
Empanadas are a beloved Latino dish made with flour dough and filled with just about anything you can imagine, beef, cheese, guava, fish, seafood, even pizza-style fillings. The sky really is the limit. Recipes are easy to find online, and when made with others, the process becomes quicker and more enjoyable. Since the beef filling was already prepared, my son Nate and I simply had to make the dough, roll it into round disks, stuff them, seal the edges with a fork, deep-fry them, and enjoy.
It took us nearly two hours to mix the dough by hand, roll it out, fill each empanada, and carefully close the edges. The effort was absolutely worth it. Making empanadas together gave us the chance to spend quality time, something we don’t often get. We played Latino music, shared stories from when he was a baby, laughed a lot, and truly enjoyed being together.
Sometimes, the most meaningful moments come from unexpected inconveniences. What began as a missing ingredient turned into a reminder that slowing down, creating something by hand, and being fully present with the people we love is what truly nourishes us. Long after the empanadas were gone, the memory of that afternoon and the connection we shared, remained.
