Stuffed Then Baked Bread! aka - CALZONES!!!

So... obviously it's been forever, but I have a good excuse! My school keeps me busier than ever. Plain and simple! But, I'm back... for now... Next term is going to be super-crazy! Hopefully it will go by both quickly and successfully (just like the first one)!

This calzone recipe was actually made back in January (YEAH - that's how life has been!) Being on break this week, I finally got around to editing and uploading the pictures on blogger! The calzones turned out really tasty! Probably because they HAD to! It has a 4.5/5 from 442 reviews! It better be good! LOL! So - first things first I make the dough - yeast, water, sugar, salt and flower. I knead it once it's been mixed, and then let it rise for about 45 minutes.

About 30 minutes into the rise, I get the fillings ready. Yeah - that's pepperoni. But that's why calzones are soooo good! Everyone can have their choice of filling! Besides the pepperoni, I also had on hand spinach, mushrooms, onions, and jalapenos! That's another reason why calzones are great: just fill them with any and all leftovers around the kitchen!

I changed up the cheese just a little bit from the original recipe. I used part skim ricotta, mozzarella and parmesan cheese, and Italian seasoning in place of the basil. I also didn't mix all the veggies (and meat for Ronnie and Matt) with the cheese. Next time I will though! That would have been better than my layering technique.

Once the dough has risen, I flatten it out...

And separate it into four "equal" pieces. (Equal is not easy! LOL!)

Next, I roll the dough into "circles". (HAHA - that's not easy either! You can tell I'm not a baker.)

And then my favorite part of any calzone - the fillings! Like I said, I will mix the cheese and veggies together next time. It was more of a logistical reason this first time. (I didn't want pepperoni in mine!) But I think the final product would have been even better if I had gone for a mix! So I'll just make that happen next time.

I close the the calzone and push the edges with a fork to make a seal. Finally I brush the top with some olive oil.

And there they are! Ready to go in the oven! I marked the vegetarian ones with jalapenos - super easy and super smart!

While the calzones are baking I heat up some marinara sauce for dipping! YUM! This is also the time that everyone at the Luckey-Meyer house is getting anxious to eat the calzones that make the kitchen smell yummy! (Ronnie LOVED these - they're great for the entire family!)

30 minutes have passed, we made some salads to go along with our calzones, and dinner is served!

These were a bit time consuming but super easy to make! I made them on a Sunday, so I had plenty of time for dinner. I think the next time you need something to please everyone on a weekend - these calzones are the way to go!

Comfort Food For a Monday Night!

I am an avid list maker. I make grocery lists, menu lists for a week's worth of food, to-do lists, gift-shopping lists, if there is a list to be made - I am in the shadows making it (or out in the open sometimes - I'm crazy like that!) Anyway - wanting to make something Italian for dinner soon (because it's Ronnie's favorite and a sure way to make him eat up all of his dinner) while making my grocery list I couldn't decide on a lasagna or manicotti. Manicotti won after asking some people for their opinions and HERE WE GO: Manicotti comin' right at cha!

This manicotti is extremely simple and actually comes together fairly quickly. I paired the manicotti with a new garlic bread recipe I spied on allrecipes.com, Roasted Garlic Bread - and YUM-O, am I glad I did! To start the meal out, I cut the top halves off of 3 bulbs of garlic. Sprinkle them with a bit of olive oil, and just as the recipe says, stick them in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes. This is also when I open the window in the kitchen - though it smells pretty good - roasting garlic can be a bit over-powering to sensitive noses! I then can move onto preparing the manicotti.

My filling for manicotti involves a pint of ricotta cheese, 2 cups of mozzarella, a handful of parmesan, an egg, half of a finely chopped red onion, garlic powder, basil, oregano, a bit of parsley, and a few twists from my black pepper mill. No need to add salt, the tomato sauce has plenty of it for the whole meal.

One thing I did not take a picture of, (because really, who wants another boring picture of pasta boiling), are the manicotti noodles. For this particular recipe, I only cook the manicotti noodles about halfway (5 minutes tops). This allows for a sturdier noodle when filling it with cheese, and the time in the oven afterwards is enough to cook the noodles all the way through - plus it's a time saver! Love those!

So - by now the manicotti noodles have been removed from the water and drained and we are ready to start stuffing!!! First things first, I cover the bottom of my 9X13 pan with half of my tomato sauce.

Who says "piping-bags" are just for pastries?!?! NOT ME! Using a big ziplock bag, I fill it with the cheese mixture, cut the corner off and fill my manicotti noodles with ease! Don't make the same mistake I have before by cutting the hole too big - remember the rule (and this is a GREAT rule that can be applied to a lot of different things) you can always take off more but you can never add it back once it's been cut! Anyway - if you cut the hole too big, it ends up taking almost just as long to fill because it gets messy. But if you cut the hole in the corner of the bag slightly smaller, it's really easy to stick it in the noodle - squeeze - and you are filled and ready for the next one! Pretty nifty huh?

I arrange all the noodles in the dish, cover them with the remaining sauce, and top with a bit more parmesan. By this time, the roasted garlic is ready to come out. So I swap the garlic for the manicotti in the oven for about 45 minutes.

I let the garlic sit and cool so it is easy to handle with my bare hands. This is exactly when Ronnie made his way into the kitchen, "mmMMmm - that smells delicious Mama" were his exact words. It really is hard to resist the smell of roasting garlic... too bad for Vampires. So, now that Ronnie likes the smells coming from the kitchen, he is ready and willing to help! We melt a stick of butter in the microwave and once it is done we simply squeeze the bulbs of garlic. The cloves easily plop out of the bulb into the butter and that's pretty nifty too!

Simply following the recipe - our garlic bread topping consists of a stick of melted butter, the 3 bulbs of roasted garlic, a handful of parmesan cheese, and some chopped parsley. We used a fork to mash the garlic cloves and mixed everything together.

A large loaf of french bread is cut into halves and we spread the garlic butter mixture over the two halves. We could already tell at this point that dinner was going to be good!

After washing a few dishes to help Matt out (I'm the cooker (for the most part), he's the dishwasher) the manicotti is ready to come out of the oven. I switch the broiler on and throw (okay - not literally) in the garlic bread.

Almost every time I cook - I learn a little something. Monday night was no exception! Next time I will lower the top rack so my edges don't get burnt by the broiler. It says 5 minutes and I kept a close eye on it and ended up taking it out a little early so I wouldn't totally ruin the bread. Regardless - obviously - it still turned out FANTASTIC!

Serve these up with a salad and you have a GREAT comfort food meal that would be hard not to please everyone! Really easy - a bit time consuming - but well worth it for sure!

I am thinking of switching my picture-provider-uploader-service-whatcha-ma-call-it. Currently I use photobucket - but lately service has been slow and my picture's don't always upload to blogger... Any suggestions? I was thinking of trying picasa?

Till next time! Have fun in the kitchen!!!

Stuff This Not That

Welcome to my NEW kitchen! Okay, well, it's not new-new, but it's new to me!!! Though it's not that much bigger than my old one, I feel like I have so much more room to spread out and really get cooking! You'll also see Ronnie in there - my trusty helper!

Today's meal is consisting of a stuffed shell that I have been making for awhile now. Being a vegetarian, the hardest part about cooking is all the prep-work that can go into it. I like this particular meal because it utilizes frozen vegetables! The only thing I have to prep is some fresh zucchini and opening cans!!!

To start the meal, I boil some lightly salted water and add around 18 shells.

After heating some olive oil in a skillet I add about a cup of frozen pepper and onion mix, along with some minced garlic. See??? No prep! Straight from the freezer to the skillet! LOVE IT!


This is my only major prepping-step! I cut up a medium zucchini. Not too bad at all!


I then add the chopped zucchini to the pepper-onion and garlic mix and let it cook for about 5 minutes. Then I add a small can of sliced black olives! Mm-mmm... Olives! I think it's the olives that really make this meal special.


My trusty helper Ronnie is seen here mixing low-fat ricotta, parmesan and part-skim mozzarella cheese. This recipe originally calls for an egg, but I was out - I honestly didn't even need it as it turned out fine in the end!


After the cheese mixture is together and the vegetables are done cooking, I add all the vegetables with the cheese and then mix in about a 1/4 cup of pasta sauce.

Once everything is good and mixed and the shells have been drained, I then proceed to stuff the shells and add them to a greased 9x13 dish. This really is the hardest step, only because it takes the longest and you have to be a little bit careful to not rip the shells.

Finally I dump a whole bunch of pasta sauce onto the shells. The more sauce the better in my household - especially since leftovers can get really dry if you were light on the sauce originally. I cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake it for about 35 minutes.

After the 35 minutes is up, I take it out of the oven, remove the foil and top with some extra mozzarella. Then it goes back into the oven for another 10 minutes or so.

This meal really does come together easily and it looks way harder than it really is! Two reasons to love it and make it often! Also - though I have never frozen them - they make GREAT leftovers for lunch the next day. ENJOY!

The First & The Last

My parents came over to pick Ronnie up last Wednesday, and they stayed for dinner too! The funny thing, this was both the first and probably the last time I will make dinner for them in this particular kitchen since the big move to the new house is less than 3 weeks away!

For dinner with my parents, I went with a new recipe I found on the Whole Foods website. The main ingredients include lasagna noodles, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, spinach, pasta sauce, and low-fat ricotta cheese! Sounds like a great start to me!

The basic ideas of these "Cheesy Spinach Rolls" is to roll the noodles instead of layering them like a lasagna. So... First things first, I boil the noodles.

Next, after the noodles are done, I lay some wax paper on the counter and place all the noodles next to each other. The first layer of the rolled noodles is the low-fat ricotta cheese. I also topped it with some garlic powder and Italian seasoning.

I then spread the noodles with the pasta sauce.

Our next ingredient - the spinach! I love spinach!



Lastly, I top the rolls with a little bit of leftover mozzarella cheese I had in the fridge. I figured - why not?


Now the fun part - rolling the stuffed noodles. Just a simple roll is all it takes. Seriously, this couldn't get any easier!


After each individual noodle has been rolled, I place them in a 9x13 pan. You want a bit of a tight fit so they don't come apart while they are baking.


Then before I place them in the oven, I top the rolls with my remaining pasta sauce.


These rolls are a great alternative to a regular lasagna. Next time I think I'll have Ronnie help me, because this truly is an easy, kid-friendly prepping recipe!



I am not exactly sure what is up for the next recipe! If I have my say, I will be making BBQ Portabello Quesadillas with grilled corn on the cob!