Double Trouble:Twin Stromboli!

In case you are wondering, Stromboli is "Rolled earth bread filled with smoked mozzarella and basil". It is , "Named after the volcanic island of Stromboli, located off the coast of Sicily, this bread is filled with a delcious combination of smoked and plain mozzarella. The cheeses erupt from the holes pierced in the rolled focaccia dough during baking." This is from my new book, "Bread" by Eric Treuille.

I am sure you can see why I just had to try his recipe for Stromboli first before I did anything else in the book. I found that picture on google images.

SO yesterday I baked two loaves of our regular daily bread and cracked open my new book. I put it on top of the microwave instead of the counter in the hopes that I wouldn't splatter anything on my new book. I looked later and I think there is one teeny tiny oil mark from the olive oil I had on my finger. lol

I had mozzarella and cheddar cheese but no smoked mozzarella. So I substituted cheddar for the smoked. Everything else I did the same. I really had fun doing this and even learned a new technique, chafing the loaf. I just hit google and if you read #5 that should explain it. It is actually pretty simple. Chafing.

The rising time said 1 1/2 - 2 hours but I had the oven on from the other bread. No I didn't stick it on top of the stove but it was sitting next to the stove. *trys to look innocent* haha I think it was done rising in about 40 minutes.

The first thing I did was to double the recipe and yes it all fit in my mixing bowl. My new bread board came in handy to chafe the dough on and then when I needed to roll it out. I have no idea where my old tupperware rolling pin I never cared for went. I think I used it twice in all the years I had it. I got it for free though so at least I didn't waste money. I think I am supposed to fill it with water or something?

I need to find it cause, don't laugh, it took me 10 minutes to roll out one stromboli on my middle dd's mini rolling pin she got for christmas. *hangs head in shame* Okay you can laugh now. lol

This is a picture right before it went in the oven. AFter you roll it out you cover it and let it rest for 10 minutes. I have a huge rubbermaid container that fits my texas sheet cake perfectly. It was just the right size to hold one dough so I could roll out the other dough. I was thinking this would probably also be a good dough for pizza. I will have to try that next time.

Okay now it called for 1 Tbs of oil drizzled on the top, plus 1 tsp of salt and 1 tsp of pepper. I used kosher salt which looks chunky. When I was putting it on I even thought it was too much salt and pepper but figured I would adjust it later. These twin's are not burnt. That is black pepper on the top which makes it look so black. If you don't believe me look at the before I threw them in the oven picture. lol

I timed it just right so that we could eat dinner when Joe got home. We had a salad on the side and it was perfect!! We all really loved this Stromboli I am definately going to make it again and again. My 7 year old son and 9 y/o dd couldn't believe I made it from scratch they said it tasted like french bread. And they were surprised I could make a bread like that. Joey loved it of course, only thing he said to change the next time was half the salt. My eldest son said this was better than restaurant food! My eldest dd said it was delicious.

I loved it too. With it as just bread and cheese and a salad I was thinking a light soup would of gone perfect. Or what I really want to try next time is throwing some sauce on it as well as some kind of meat. It looked like one huge hot pocket! haha I told the girls maybe this Sat. or Sun. we could make this dough up and cut it smaller and make mini Stromboli's.

Our cheese didn't come out the top for some reason, but some did shoot out the side.

I think I will post the recipe later. I need to go on a walk right now.

Super Chunky Spaghetti Sauce

Okay so I always like to make a huge pot of sauce. I grab one of those huge 6 lb 6 oz cans of whole peeled tomatoes from Smart N Final. Take the juice it comes in and put that in the pot. I take the tomatoes and cut them up. First in half, then I cut about 3-4 more times. You can dice them finer if you like. I take 2 green bell peppers and chop them up. I take about 6 cloves of garlic and 2 onions and peel and chop that real fine.

I shake a good helping of basil, oregano and parsley in to the pot. I added 7 6 oz cans of tomato paste. I added a spoonful or so of olive oil. I also added some water.

Simmer on low for 45 minutes stirring every once in a while. It is very good! last time I also chopped up some celery too. Maybe next time I will add some carrots. DO you make your own sauce or just grab Ragu?

Newest Pizza Adventure

Okay so this other site is where I got the new dough recipe from that I made on Monday for Tuesday. It was supposed to sit for 24 hours.

White Whole Wheat Pizza Dough Recipe


Okay so it was really great! Even better than the last. Isn't that what I always say? each recipe is better than the last. lol His recipe calls for 3 cups of flour for one big dough ball. I wasn't sure how much it would make because we like to make 3 and freeze 3. So I made 4 big dough balls. I took two out and figured I would split them in half.


Here is one dough ball:


Now we have the pizza machine, but it can only cook one pizza at a time. So I took one dough ball and cut that in half. Made that pizza(Kass helped with toppings).


I dusted the dough with a little flour and lots of corn meal on the stone.



Here is how that turned out. Yeah I know dd#1 was dropping toppings all over the table.




Then I split the next half in half again cause I just bought 4 new round cake pans. I took two out, melted butter and brushed 2 round pans. That half dough was enough for two of the round pans.




I also have a huge rectangular shaped cookie sheet. I melted butter and brushed that pan as well. I took the last dough and we put that on this pan. I am thinking maybe there would of been enough dough from this for one more cake pan. Cause that pizza came out thicker than the deep dish rounds even! The first dough was enough for one big round and two cake pans.



Look at that crust on the deep dish round!




The brown meat is turkey sausage




This is the side view.


The two round deep dish ones were really good. I am going to use this recipe again next time. The brushed butter was just enough for a crispy crust but not greasy. I liked that crust better than all the other past crust. Isn't this what I always say? lol I didn't try the pizza on the pizza maker and the rectangle one looked good too but I already had 3 small slices of the deep dish and was full. That is one thing about the whole wheat. It fills you up faster than white flour.


This is a pic of the pizza from the huge cookie sheet.


Basically we wound up with ALOT of pizza! Like twice as much as we needed and there is still 2 dough balls in the fridge. haha Maybe one dough is enough for one night.

Have you ever made deep dish pizza? What is your favorite kind of crust?

Cheesy Lasagna & Garlic Stix!

Well I just finished adding up what I spent on the lasagna. $40.53 for 4 pans! Ouch!! You see now I remember why people just grab what is packaged at the store. Time and convenience and sometimes it isn't much cheaper making your own! lol I never look down at others who don't cook from scratch or make their own food cause I used to be in their shoes. Work, home, kids, husband. When you work out of the home, your attention is seriously divided. Those fast food lights are looking brighter and brighter and if you pick up a box of Stouffer's come home and toss it in the oven with a salad and rolls, that is MAKING dinner. haha You are a Queen.

I am blessed now to be able to stay home and take care of my family. I do feel our health has improved with cooking from scratch more often and all the fresher foods. But jee wizz I spent like 6 hours in the kitchen yesterday! Now this is no new feat for me. There are quite a few days a week I am in there for 4-5 hours or so. What I generally try to do is to make up food all at once so that I can have it later. You know, later, when I don't want to be in the kitchen at all. ;)

Here is what I spent.

4 pans of lasagna

2 20 oz packs of sweet italian sausage= $8.00
2 20 oz packs of ground turkey = $4.20
3 lb ricotta cheese = $3.99
2.33 lbs of lasagna noodles = $2.60
5 lbs of mozzarella cheese = $13.99
6 lbs, 6 oz of whole tomatoes = $3.00
10 6 oz cans of tomato paste = $3.33
4 eggs = .40 cents
1 can of Hunts spaghetti sauce = 1.00 = $40.53/ so $10.13 each.

I think next time I need to use 4 lbs of cheese and maybe half the meat! lol Oh well.
It was really good. It fed two adults, two teenagers and 3 other kids and enough for lunch for Joe today.

SO that is what I do. I will take a day when I feel like being in the kitchen, cooking, cleaning, chopping, baking, soaking veggies, etc. I will have a bunch of things I am trying to do at once. I get them done and guess what? If I did a good job I won't have to be in the kitchen the next day except to do the basics like dishes, counter, stove.

So yesterday I decided it was time to make up 4 lasagna's and some garlix stix. I went in at 10:00. I think we ate about 4:00 Now of course I didn't spend the whole time with the lasagna and stix, cause I have 5 kids underfoot and dh. Of course the first thing that happened was the 3 male late breakfast stragglers. I guess they didn't get the memo to eat some cereal and as soon as I hit the kitchen the boys were running in, I am hungry, what are you making? Etc. To their credit they were busy that a.m. cleaning the garage.

So I cut them some h.m. bread, made some eggs and sausage. My girls were supposed to be cleaning their rooms. My eldest dd lied and said her cat box was clean and in the dumpster and when i went to check it was not even done! I threatened to get rid of the cats if her box wasn't cleaned in 15 minutes and she had two days to get her room completely clean. It was awful. It was clean this a.m. :)

Anyways so little interruptions here and there and she eventually came in and grated cheese and chopped up cantaloupe and watermelon and strawberries and apples. Middle dd did not get much done in her room but read alot of good books! I will have to see if I can get a handle on that today. She did come help me with the lasagna & bread stix though.

Now I normally don't use eggs for lasagna but I seen a recipe online where they added eggs to cottage cheese and a little parmesan. It also called for whole tomatoes and tomato paste. I ran low on sauce so that is why i opened a can of hunts sauce. I really liked using the whole tomatoes and tomato paste. I think I need to cut them up a little next time. lol I had a recipe earlier in the year from someone how to make the sauce but I can't find the book I put it in. :( So I did try that. It tasted the same. We ate one and wrapped the other 3 in freezer paper. We also made 3 extra batches of bread stix to freeze as well. I am going to look for another reecipe for those too. They are good. I do like them. But finding that new bread recipe that was even better than the last one makes me think maybe I can find a great recipe for garlic bread. We'll see.

Here are some pictures. I think everyone knows how to make lasagna so I will skip any instructions. ;)Here is my blog about bread stix: Bread Stix

Do you make your own lasagna? Do you buy it from the store? What do you like to do to help with oamc? For pictures of the finished product check out the blog below.

Tammy's Easy Pizza

My family loves pizza. Generally over the summer that translated to us making h.m. once or twice and the rest of the time, like once a week, it was Little Caesar's. haha Making your own is much healthier though than pizza from your local fast food place. On Oct 26 we made 6 pizzas, 3 to eat, 3 to freeze. So we actually didn't need to make any this week but I seen Tammy's recipe and I just had to give it a try. (While I actually felt like making it.)

The recipe I usually stick with is Jay's Signature Pizza Crust I think I tried one other one once and it was a complete flop. It is pretty good but tends to break easily, probably cause of the whole wheat.

Anyhow so I tried this recipe and it was pretty similiar. It is a very good recipe. A few things I did notice especially since we had this Wed. night and that was only a few days difference.

Generally, I LOVE crust. That is white flour crust. I think I enjoy crazy bread and crust more than the pizza. I loved it when L.C. used to do their "pan" pizza. They discontinued that. Now I get the cheesy bread when we order pizza and that is pretty similiar.

Anyhow ww is different though. It taste good while eating the pizza but it is not something I want to chow down on KWIM? I would be more apt to toss the crust if there were too much of it on the ww pizza. That being said, with Tammy's recipe, this crust actually was pretty good. No not white flour good. But good. I did like it better than Jay's. It was still wheaty but not as wheaty. I am wondering if the difference is in the time when you add the yeast. Her pizza and her bread recipe you add it at the end and mix with everything else. Most recipes tell you to mix the yeast with water, then add everything else.

I am wondering if that helps it not be so "wheaty" tasting. I don't know. Another thing I noticed was generally Jay's recipe I HAVE to eat it with a fork cause it breaks easily. This one I didn't have too. It was pretty sturdy.

Next time I am going to use EVOL instead of butter. I greased the pan with evol spray, not butter like it recommends. I omitted the salt to add to the top.

All in all it is a very yummy recipe and we are going to use it again. :)

Tammy's Easy Pizza

Description:

A soft pizza dough recipe, topped with your favorite pizza toppings and baked
Yield: 12-16 slices
Ingredients:

Crust Ingredients:

3/4 cup water (110-115 degrees, preferably)
1 teaspoon sugar
2 Tablesppoons butter, melted or very softened
2 1/2 cups flour
1 Tablespoon yeast

Other Ingredients:

1Â Tablespoon cornmeal (optional)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup pizza sauce
12 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese
sliced onions, optional
chopped bell peppers, optional
turkey pepperoni, fried turkey bacon, or fried hamburger, optional
1/4 teaspoon oregano
1/8 teaspoon basil
2 Tablespoons parmesan cheese
Instructions:

1. If using a bread machine to make pizza dough, put ingredients in bread machine in order listed and set to dough setting.

If making dough by hand, mix water, butter, and sugar in mixing bowl. Add part of the flour and stir. Add the rest of the flour and the yeast, and stir into a dough. Knead for 6-8 minutes, or until dough is smooth and elastic. Set dough in bowl and grease the top. Cover with a towel and set in a warm place to rise for about 45 minutes.*

2. After dough has risen the first time, punch down and knead until air bubbles are removed.

3. Liberally butter a 16-inch round pizza pan, and press dough onto pan. Carefully lift one-half of the crust and fold over (to expose half of the pizza pan). Sprinkle 1/2 Tablespoon cornmeal over pan. Lay crust back in place and repeat on other half, so that there is cornmeal sprinkled between entire layer of crust and pan.

4. Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon salt over top of crust and then spread with 1 cup pizza sauce. Sprinkle on cheese and any optional toppings desired. Sprinkle on oregano, basil, and parmesan cheese last.

5.** Place pizza in oven and turn heat to 400 degrees. Bake for 10 minutes; rotate crust and bake for an additional 5-10 minutes or until top is browned. (Be sure to watch so it doesn't burn; every oven is different!)

6. When pizza is browned, turn off heat and open oven door. Leave pizza in oven until ready to serve. Then remove from oven, cut, and serve. If there is leftover pizza, we often put the pieces directly on a cooling rack to cool, which prevents condensation forming between the crust and pan.

Here are some pictures.


The dough. That is the other thing I noticed, it never really did rise. I let them sit for a few hours too. *shrugs*



Here are some pictures. My dd #1 was in charge of spreading out the dough and adding the toppings. Onion, olives, bell pepper, pineapple, cheese, chicken.



We have a pizza oven/turner. But it can only make one at a time.



This is a cookie sheet. I think I want some pizza stones.



It's not as easy to try to get them into the square pans I guess. lol



This one filled out pretty nice.



The best part, sliced and on my plate! Thank you to Tammy for another wonderful recipe! What kind of pizza do you like to make?

Quick and Easy Breadsticks

Quick and Easy Breadsticks

Quick and simple buttery bread sticks -- garlic or cinnamon recipe variations included!
Yield: 8 servings
Ingredients:

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter or margarine
1 tablespoon oil
3 cups flour (I use part whole wheat, part unbleached)
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4-1 cup milk

**See additional notes for ingredients and instructions to make garlic breadsticks or cinnamon breadsticks from this recipe!
Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place butter and oil in 9x13 pan and put in oven so butter melts as the oven heats up. Be careful not to let it burn!

2. Stir dry ingredients together, and gradually add milk, stirring until dough forms and leaves sides of bowl. I don't bother to actually measure out the milk - just add it gradually until there's enough.

3. Knead 5-6 times in bowl; place on floured countertop and roll out into 9x13-inch rectangle.

4. Lay dough in pre-heated 9x13-inch pan, atop the melted butter/oil. Cut into 1/2" strips. Bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes.

Additional Notes:

Variations:

Garlic Breadsticks (shown above)

1 + 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon parsley flakes
1/2 teaspoon salt

Add 1 teaspoon of the garlic powder and 1 tablespoon parsley flakes to the dough. Then, sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt in the melted butter before placing dough in the pan. Breadsticks may be sprinkled with parmesan cheese before baking.

Cinnamon Breadsticks (shown below)

1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Mix sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle on top of breadsticks before baking. Tastes like cinnamon rolls!

This recipe and photos were submitted by guest chef Abigail Paul. She credits Maggie's Buttery Bread Sticks as the original recipe inspiration source.Abigail notes, "I usually make one batch of garlic breadsticks and one of cinnamon - saves time to make two at once. The garlic ones are pretty much gone by the end of the meal, and we save the leftover cinnamon sticks for snacks or breakfast. Very tasty. :-D"
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Okay so we tried these on a Sunday, back in March. Joey wanted to help roll them out, shape them etc. They turned out really good and next time I want to do 4 pans at once and flash freeze so next time we have some for a lasagna nite. I can just pull everything else and bake! Anyways, we didn't have the new wheat yet so they were pretty wheaty and thick so I am really looking forward to seeing how much better they will taste with the lighter flour! ~ Jasmine

Here are 2 pics of our bread stix!