Braided Calzones

Are you overwhelmed with big intricate holiday meals lately! Whip up a finger food friendly dinner while you whip out some more wrapped presents!

So here is a quick and easy impressive appetizer or finger food for you.  Some nights my fiance and I like to chat over some beers and pick at finger foods, so I need to be on my toes with interesting finger food dinners.  A couple weeks ago I made chicken and cheese biscuit pockets.  This week I had some left over pizza dough in the fridge, which is always a good thing to have lying around- it is so versatile. 

I must confess this is not an original idea, I did see it on a tv commercial once- some sort of Mexican twist with a puff pastry instead.  Any dough, cheese or theme will work- it is just the fancy way of presenting it that's a winner.

AND I still have yet to purchase a new camera. I'm sorry I have been using my camera phone but I didn't want that to stop the blog! So we will have to make due until Santa brings me one ;)


Ingredients

• My homemade pizza dough
• 2 cooked boneless skinless chicken breasts, shredded or cut into bite sized pieces
• 1 green pepper, sliced or diced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 onion, sliced or diced
• Pecorino cheese (or Parmesan)- about 1/2 cup
• 1 tsp of red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp of salt
• Olive oil or extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tsp of oregano

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F
2. Make sure you are using cooked chicken.  I just cut them up into bite sized pieces and sauteed until cooked through.
3. Flour your working surface and then roll out your dough into a large rectangle shape.
4. Transfer the dough with your rolling pin to a pizza pan or baking sheet BEFORE you start adding the other ingredients (believe me, I made this mistake and had to take everything off, then put back on)
5. Add all your ingredients (except the oil and oregano) on the dough but leave a good 2 inches or so of dough on the edges.

6. Cut the edges into strips- make sure there are the same amount on each side.  You could use a knife but kitchen shears are SO much easier (and I didn't want to cut through the tinfoil)
7. Take a strip from each side and criss cross them at the top of the filling.  Continue to do this along the whole thing.  Don't worry if the ends are less than perfect- Just tuck them in/under so nothing oozes out.




8. Sprinkle the oregano on top and cover it in some oil so the bread will brown nicely.
9. Put in the oven for about 20 minutes- or until golden brown and firm. I also turned it around half way through to ensure even cooking/browning.









10. I sliced it into inch - inch and a half slices for finger food eating.

*This recipe can be molded to whatever you have- no chicken? Use beef or sausage.  Maybe you have a different kind of cheese or vegetables.  I actually thought broccoli would have been divine in this recipe.  Just make sure you cook the meat before building the calzone.  You don't want to risk uncooked proteins.  Puff pastry, biscuit dough and pizza dough all work here- just check the cooking times might vary a bit though.

Mini Stuffed Peppers

This is one of my most viewed posts- even with the original no so perfect pictures! I think I took the first photos with my cell phone! I originally posted this in Oct 2011, and I felt it needed a photo update* (along with most of my earlier posts-see the end for originals).  Recipe is still the same and still delicious. Perfect for an easy make-a-head appetizer! 

{Since my Greek style Stuffed Peppers- w/ Beef, Orzo and Feta Cheese were such a huge hit, I decided to follow that up with an Italian style smaller/appetizer size stuffed pepper recipe.  These are so cute and colorful they are hard to resist.  Yes it is more of a summer time recipe, but I just found the recipe scribbled down and felt compelled to share.  If you can't find the mini peppers just try and go with the smallest peppers you can find, and you will probably need to cook them a bit longer.  This filling recipe will make about 20-30 mini peppers.  The peppers I usually buy come in a bag already pre-packaged.  Oh, and do I really need to mention they are super easy to make?}

Ingredients

• 20 mini sweet peppers (I buy them in a bag of about 30-40 peppers)
• 2 hot (or sweet) sausages, removed from the casing
• 1 small onion or shallot, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 10 oz box of spinach, thawed and excess liquid squeezed out (or fresh spinach cooked down to about the same amount- about 2 bunches or so)
• 3/4 cup of ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese
• 1/2 c pecorino (or parmesan) cheese
• Salt and pepper
• 2 tbsp fresh basil

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Prep peppers by cutting off the top and carefully removing/scooping out seeds and ribs from the inside.  Set aside and reserve.
3. Meanwhile, remove the sausage from the casing and brown in a skillet with about a tsp of oil just to get it going.  After sausage is fully cooked through, drain excess oil but leave about a tbs in the skillet.
4. Add onion and garlic- cook until soft about 5 minutes.
5. Add the spinach and heat through
6. In a bowl combine the cooked sausage mixture and the rest of the ingredients.
7. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
8. Wait until the stuffing is cool enough to handle and stuff peppers.
9. Spray a baking sheet with some cooking spray, lay out all your peppers, drizzle with a little oil and put in the oven about 20 minutes.

You might end up with a bit of extra filling, depending on the size of your peppers. You can just put the remaining filling in a ziplock bag and then freeze for later use.

*Oh yea, and here are those original photos:



(Tofu) Wonton Raviolis

I know, I know, tofu OMG! Honestly the only difference this had from using ricotta cheese- was the texture, not the taste.  Of course you can just substitute the tofu for ricotta cheese and it will just be a bit creamier.  Make this for your family but don't let anyone know it's tofu- I bet they won't even notice.

Tofu facts:

• Tofu is made of soybeans.
• One half-cup serving of raw firm tofu contains 10 grams of protein, only 94 calories and 5 grams of fat
• Tofu is also cholesterol-free as well as a great source of calcium and iron
• Tofu is great at absorbing flavors and spices (kinda like chicken) because it works like a sponge and really doesn't have its own flavor.
• There are two different kinds of tofu: silken and firm. Silken is like cream cheese (I have never used this one) and firm.  The firm type, when crumbled, looks like scrambled eggs or ricotta cheese.

Preparing Tofu

• Tofu is packed in water. Think of it as a big sponge. Most recipes call for "draining" the tofu.  Basically drain the water and then wrap it in a bunch of paper towels and press it between two plates. Plate-tofu wrapped in paper towels-plate-something heavy on top to apply pressure to squeeze all liquid out.  Doesn't take long- about 15mins or so. 

Wontons!

• Let me just begin by saying wonton wrappers are freaking awesome.  15 calories each and you can stuff them with anything- even dessert stuff!  They can be steamed, baked, fried, sauteed, boiled, frozen.  Look in your produce or frozen dept. If you have an Asian supermarket you can always find them there.  They are extremely cheap (for me its like $1.50 for 50 wrappers).  This recipe will make about 40 wontons. I keep them in my freezer and they thaw out super quick.

Ingredients

• 1 (I think its like 16oz) package of firm or extra firm tofu
• 1 cup of spinach (I used fresh baby spinach but you can always use frozen-thawed and squeezed though)
• 2 cloves of garlic minced or grated (if you're not such a garlic fan use only one clove)
• About 7 basil leaves, torn or chopped (if you don't have fresh used a tsp of dried)
• 1 tsp each of: onion powder, oregano, crushed red pepper flakes, and salt
• Few grinds of fresh black pepper
• 1/2-3/4 cup of cheese- I used fresh Pecorino Romano, but you can use Parmesan or mozzarella
• 1 egg
• Package of wonton skins/wrappers (about 50 wrappers)
• Cooking spray
• Small bowl of water

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2. In a bowl break up the drained tofu until it looks like ricotta cheese-ish.  Add the spinach, garlic, basil, dried spices, cheese and the egg.  Mix that all together.
3. Using a tablespoon (don't overload the wonton! it will break apart and become a mess), scoop one tablespoon of the mixture and put in the middle of the wonton.  Using the water dip your fingers and put the water on the edges of the wonton, then fold over into a triangle and seal-try to get most of the air out-place on baking sheets sprayed with cooking spray.

4. After they are all done, spray the tops with cooking spray and pop in the oven for about 15-20 mins.
5. Serve with your favorite marinara/tomato sauce!

PS: these are awesome for parties and appetizers.  I know they are a pain in the ass to make-it takes a little while- but worth it in the end. If you dont have a lot of time that day you can prepare them and then just freeze them! (freeze them flat on the trays if you can, then put into ziplocks) (If you ever had frozen pierogies its sort of like that) Then just pop in the oven (might have to bake a little longer-or you can just defrost them on the counter first).  This idea is great for like wonton soup or you can even make pierogies just stuff with mashed potatoes, garlic and cheese!