Pastit ( Guam Turnovers )

Thursdays are our baking day. Start the girls out young learning to cook and then hopefully they can take over all of the cooking completely ... very soon. Now let's see, what other types of specialists do we need around here? If one child learns electrical work, one learns plumbing and one janitorial work, why we'll have a whole crew and will save a lot of money! Anyhow, as I was saying, Thursdays we bake! A few people in our household have requested these yummy turnovers and since November is the time for all things pumpkin ... let's make them today! Recipe: Pie pastry ~ 5 cups flour, 1/2 cup sugar, 15 Tablespoons shortening, 15 Tablespoons ice water. Combine flour, sugar and shortening until the dough is the consistency of cornmeal. Add the ice water and mix into soft dough with hands. Roll dough out and cut into circles approximately 5 " in diameter. (A cooking pot lid makes a good cutter. ) Filling: 1 medium pumpkin or 1 29oz can of pumpkin. 3 cups brown sugar, 3 cups white sugar, 1 Tbsp cinnamon, 2 Tbsp. pumpkin pie spice. We've found that the pastry dough makes about 20 - 22 turnovers and the filling recipe fills about 50 turnovers. We always have a lot of filling leftover so you may want to cut that recipe in half. If using a whole pumpkin, peel it and cut into chunks. Cover with water in pan and cook over medium heat. Drain well. Mix mashed pumpkin with sugars and spices. Place 1 Tablespoon filling into each pastry circle. Fold pastry circle over in half and seal with a fork.

Poke holes in each turnover for steam to escape. Bake on a cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 20 - 25 minutes.

Who needs to light a pumpkin spice scented candle when you can make these and eat them too!