Hand Pies & Infinite Sabbatical
A pivot post, a recipe, and a renovation
In early 2025 I started writing this as a food-focused blog.
I had just parted ways with a pretty intense startup at about the 10 year mark into working as a software engineer, most of that time also being a mom. I was VERY ready for a sabbatical.
For me, food is and was a constant writing prompt. An actually increasingly critically important part of life the more years I live.
Food is not going anywhere in Feast Mode, but I think I’ve figured out something major that needs to be present at this table going forward.
Last year, I decided to try my hand at a fix-and-rent real estate investment project. Not because I want to become a big-time company owner or ultra-rich, but because I want to own my time.
The phrase that keeps going through my mind is infinite sabbatical.
Hey food friends! 👋 I'm Kaitlynn—software engineer, kitchen tinkerer, and somewhere in the middle of what I'm calling an infinite sabbatical. Feast Mode is a food blog that's grown into something a little bigger: recipes, real talk about financial freedom, and the ongoing experiment of building a life you actually chose. Pull up a chair.
Built to Hold: A Spring Pie Series 🥧🌿
Built to Hold is a beginner-friendly pie series for curious cooks, thoughtful eaters, and anyone who enjoys learning about the world through food.
Pie is one of humanity’s simplest technologies: edible containment. Across cultures and centuries, people discovered that a little structure made from flour and fat can hold heat, flavor, and nourishment long enough for transformation to happen and still be shared or carried somewhere else.
Invented for convenience, pie also tells us something about boundaries, community, and the sublime poetry of circles. A crust becomes a boundary. Inside it, ingredients soften, meld, and become something new.
In this series we’ll explore that idea through approachable pie techniques and seasonal recipes. We’ll make custards that set but tremble, forgiving doughs that work in real kitchens, and pies filled with ingredients that feel especially alive in spring: pandan, citrus, greens, herbs, berries, protein and early vegetables.
Some pies will be delicate tarts. Others rustic galettes or savory hand-pies. Different shapes, same simple idea: build a container sturdy enough to hold nourishment while it transforms.
We love a nutritional or plant lore deep dive but this series isn’t about optimizing anything. It’s about curiosity, balance, and food that feels good to cook and share. I’m not a chef or a clinician, just a regular human learning through cooking and reading.
If you’re curious too, pull up a chair.
There’s always room for another slice.
My goal in this infinite sabbatical (as in pie) isn’t to never work again or sleep on a beach all day (well, sometimes). However, I can confidently say that I am now living a life where I get to choose what I work on, when I work on it, and when I don’t.
Absolutely astounding.
Despite what you might be imagining, this still includes plenty of work. Real estate projects. Writing. Parenting. Learning. The kind of things that can easily add up to well over the classic American 40-hour work week.
The difference is that they are things I choose.
It also includes the freedom, at literally any point I decide, to focus more on parenting while my daughter is still young. Or to take a job that I genuinely enjoy. Or to leave that job when it stops being the right fit. Or to just reflect on the kind of life I want to create.
For the first little bit, getting started building a new financial paradigm has been a bit of a monastic existence (though there are literally thousands of ways to achieve financial freedom - yes, really). Real estate is not usually for the faint of heart.
However, it is WAY more approachable than most people think. And I want to start using this space to talk about the practical things I’m doing to create more financial freedom in a way that feels accessible to an ordinary hard-working family.
And maybe more importantly than that, I want to talk about how I’m working on myself.
Mind. Body. Attention.
If you ever find yourself wondering if you could use your time differently, live more closely in sync with the human and community member you really want to be, and also love a good meal, that is more the direction we’re heading.
I’m not trying to be fancy (well, sometimes) or attach my value to a number in the bank - I’m trying to make room to let my life be about more than that.
It’s possible that not every post from here on out is going to include a major food-focus, but it will always be bringing what creating a ‘feasting’ atmosphere in a larger sense of the word looks like for me, and ideas for how you might consider starting to move in that direction too.
If you’ve been following along for recipes, don’t worry. I’m still human, so I literally can’t be gone from the kitchen for long. Good food still matters to me more than ever. Learning how to feed ourselves well remains one of the highest-leverage skills I know.
In the last couple months I’ve also realized that food writing was always a spring-board writing prompt to help me approach a bigger question.
How do we build lives that leave room to actually live them?
I’m not completely sure what this space will look like going forward, simply because, for the first time in a long time I’m genuinely approaching the unknown with curiosity.
I don’t have a five-year content strategy hiding in a drawer somewhere.
What I do have is a growing sense that the next chapter is less about mastering a single topic and more about exploring how all of these pieces fit together.
There will still be recipes.
There will probably always be recipes.
But there may also be stories from renovation projects, reflections from meditation practice, lessons learned from parenting, and occasional reports from the ongoing experiment of building a life with a little more freedom and a little less obligation.
So actually it feels fitting to wrap up our pie series and simultaneously pair this pivot with hand pies.
They’re portable. Practical. Designed to travel.
And, in a way, so is this post.
Over the next couple of months I’ll be spending a lot of my time on a different project: renovating another rental property.
So here is a hand-pie recipe for the road, or a renovation job-site (i know, perfect).
And next up I’ll start to fill you in on what I’m gearing up for with this year’s real-estate project.
Here’s to seeing where the road goes next in my experiment building a life with more freedom, agency, and presence.
If you’re curious about any part of this journey, let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear what you’re wondering about and share what I’m learning along the way.
So now, pie, and all it contains.
Butternut squash is one of those ingredients that earns its keep nutritionally without making a fuss about it. It’s rich in beta-carotene (the same pigment that makes it that deep orange — your body converts it to vitamin A), a solid source of vitamin C, potassium, and magnesium, and high enough in fiber to actually matter. It’s also quietly anti-inflammatory, which feels appropriate for a season of transition. Roasting it — really roasting it, until the edges caramelize — is not just about flavor. The browning concentrates its natural sugars and deepens everything. Don’t skip that part.
Sage has been used medicinally across cultures for centuries — its latin name, Salvia, literally means “to heal.” Traditionally it was valued for its antimicrobial properties, its support of digestion, and in some traditions, as a memory aid. Modern research has started to back some of that up. In the kitchen, it’s one of the few herbs that genuinely transforms when it hits fat and heat rather than just wilting into the background. Brown butter and sage is one of those classic pairings that exists because it is, simply, correct.
Butternut Squash & Sage Hand Pies
Flaky, golden hand pies with a creamy, caramelized squash filling. Makes about 12 empanada-sized pies (using 1 standard 2-crust frozen pie dough pack)
Ingredients
1 package frozen pie crusts (2-crust pack), thawed but still cold or sure, make your own pie crust
1 medium butternut squash (about 2–2½ lbs), pre-cubed also works great.
1 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoons kosher salt
0.3 teaspoons black pepper, to taste
4 ounces mascarpone cheese
0.3 cups grated parmesan
0.3 cups pine nuts
4 tbsp butter
15 fresh sage leaves, finely chopped
Steps
Heat oven to 425°F: Set your oven to 425°F. While it heats up, peel the squash, scoop out the seeds, and cut it into small cubes — roughly ¾-inch (about the size of a large marble).
Season & roast the squash: Toss the cubed squash with 1 tablespoons olive oil, 1 teaspoons kosher salt, and 0.3 teaspoons black pepper, to taste on a sheet pan. Spread into a single layer — crowding causes steaming, not caramelizing. Roast for 20-25 min, until tender and browned at the edges. Those browned bits = flavor. Let cool slightly.
Toast the pine nuts: While the squash roasts, add the pine nuts to a dry skillet over medium heat. Stir constantly for about 2 min until golden. ⚠️ Don’t walk away — pine nuts burn very fast. Pour into a bowl immediately once done.
Brown the butter with sage: Melt the butter over med-low heat til it melts, add chopped fresh sage and let them combine until fragrant and the butter is just starting to bubble, about 2 min.
Make the filling: Add the roasted squash to a large bowl and mash it roughly with a fork — you want chunky texture, not smooth. Stir in mascarpone cheese, grated parmesan, toasted pine nuts, and brown butter with sage. Taste it! The filling should be slightly more seasoned than you’d normally eat, since the crust will mellow the flavor. Adjust: too dry → add more mascarpone. Too loose → add more parmesan.
Prep for assembly: Lower oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (or grease a muffin tin). Take your thawed pie crusts and cut each one into 6 roughly equal pieces, then roll each piece out a bit thinner and rounder.
Fill & fold: Spoon about ⅓ cup of filling onto one half of each dough round — don’t overfill or they’ll burst. Fold the dough over into a half-moon shape. Press the edges firmly together, then crimp with a fork to seal. Tip: a tight seal = no leaks.
Bake until golden: Bake at 400°F for 20–25m , until the crust is golden brown and slightly crisp at the edges.
Cool before serving or packing: Let the pies cool for at least 15–17m 30s before eating or packing. This helps them hold their shape and prevents soggy bottoms — especially important if packing for a picnic or cooler.
Notes
Protein per pie (approx. 3.5–4g): Mascarpone, parmesan, pine nuts, squash, and crust together add up to roughly 43–46g of protein for the whole batch.
Make ahead: Fill, fold, and freeze unbaked pies on a sheet pan, then transfer to a bag. Bake from frozen at 400°F, adding ~10 minutes to the bake time.
Swap options: No mascarpone? Cream cheese works. No pine nuts? Walnuts or pepitas are great alternatives.
So here’s what I want to leave you with.
These hand pies are, objectively, unprofessional and very human. I did not test them seventeen times in a controlled kitchen environment. I did not consult a pastry chef. I made them on a weekday afternoon, probably while half-distracted, and riffing a little. They are delicious. They hold together. They traveled well.
That is, more or less, the summary of everything I’m doing right now.
I am genuinely figuring this out as I go. The real estate. The writing. The version of myself that exists in a world where I own my time. None of it is polished. Some of it is actively messy. But something I keep noticing is that “messy and actually doing it” is producing better results — and honestly a better life — than “aspirationally perfect and perpetually planning.”
I love that what I’m doing is real and true to who I am discovering myself to be. And it is available in more forms than most people think.
And some days it looks like a renovation site covered in drywall dust.
And some days it looks like a Tuesday afternoon with nowhere to be, making hand pies for no particular reason except that squash is in season and sage smells incredible when it hits brown butter.
More soon from the job site. In the meantime — I hope you enjoy the pies.