December classes started this week, and now that It's actually possibly too cold to leave the house anymore, here are a couple recipes for things we covered to keep you full and hydrated until March. 

Since you still need to eat, what better to do the trick than the hearty, portable pot pie from Cornwall that used to be lunch for the region's many miners - the pasty (it's a short a). It's that thing in the photo up above, and, I think, the next big food trend.

You start with a simple, flaky dough of 2 parts flour: 1 part shortening, with just enough water to combine the two. Roll that out into big circles (like dinner plate size) and fill with a seemingly boring mixture of chopped lean beef, onions, rutabagas, and potatoes. Then you bake it for awhile and enjoy while you are busy mining tin in 17th century Cornwall. Delicious. 

There are a couple things that make pasties neat: for one, you never ever precook the filling. This is what essentially makes them not just a British empanada. In addition, a purist will never put carrot in their pasties, as that would detract from the exclusively brown/white color scheme. The typical filling is the one mentioned above, but once you get to the new world, recipes get crazy (tuna fish and supermarket biscuits!)

If you're looking to try out that tuna version (or any version), check out the recipes over on this amazing site made by some folks at Michigan Tech. Pasties are a really big deal in the Upper Peninsula (the wonders of immigration!), so you know these are authentic/plain awesome. There's also some great pasty history. 

And what better beverage to go with your super-authentic hot pocket than incredibly rich hot chocolate. The secret to making it amazingly creamy? Using heavy cream, which I would have never thought of, but in retrospect seems like a wonderful/obvious solution! Try about a 3:1 ratio of whole milk: heavy cream, just so you don't have a heart attack on the spot.