Q: I bought some South American fruit pastes in tins online at www.querico.com and I have no idea what to do with them. The flavors are interesting: one is pumpkin-coconut, one is sweet potato, and another is banana. The consistency is thick, like very thick guava jelly, and the label says they come from Argentina.

Lynne: I recall having an Indonesian dish one time that combined sweet potatoes, ground rice, a pinch of salt, and palm sugar. If you don't have palm sugar you could use brown sugar. The mixture was formed into little balls, rolled in a little additional ground rice, and deep fried. They were so good. It seems to me it would work with the sweet potato paste you have.

Another idea might be a sweet potato filling. Dilute the paste with milk and use it like a pumpkin pie filling, but with less sugar. For the pumpkin-coconut paste, try using it as a filling for empanadas. Add some diced chiles, fresh ginger, black pepper, some browned onions, and raisins that you've soaked in lime juice. Make a pie pastry, cut it into rounds, fill the rounds with the pumpkin mixture, fold and crimp the edges, brush with an egg wash, and bake.

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