Calzones

I've been meaning to make pizzas or calzones from scratch for ages, you may have even seen them pop up on the menu plan from time to time. But I never seemed to have bread flour, or the weather was too cold for rising, and I was altogether too lazy. But then pizza was put up for this fortnight's Cook's Club Challenge. Not only that, but the other two challenges were things our household were unlikely to eat. So I felt obliged to finally do this.

Luckily for me, one of the other members of that forum had a new computer arrive on the day she was due to make her pizzas, and having told her family that's what they were getting for dinner, she had to deliver, even though she was running out of time due to messing about with... I mean, setting up, the new computer. So she made her stand-by bread machine pizza dough, and helpfully posted the recipe.

Pizza Dough
3 cups bread mix
1 cup water
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp yeast

This of course, was just what I needed. So I whipped that in my bread machine, dough setting, and an hour and a half later, had a lovely tin full of dough. I split it into five sections (later combining two to make DP's, since the housemate decided he didn't want dinner after all), rolled them out into circles, and got to work. The children and I had our standard, vegetarian with bacon. To make this I just spread some tomato paste over half the circle, sprinkled it with rosemary, bacon pieces, chopped mushrooms and capsicum, and some drained pineapple chunks. Topped the lot with grated cheese, then I wet a 1cm border (which I'd left clear) and folded the dough circle in half. I cooked them for about 20 minutes at 200°C and this is what we got:

Master Three's

Miss Two's

DP had his standard pizza topping of tomato base, cheese and pepperoni. All in all, not a bad days work. I've finally got a recipe we like for homemade pizzas, and when I was pounding out my circles, Master Three wanted to help... so I have another kitchen activity we can all do together, and I'm sure I can get him to top his own pizza too! He absolutely adores cooking "real" foods, like when they cooked the quiche for dinner, so this could become quite the family favourite. I didn't cost this out, so I'm not sure how it compares to the $5.95 per pizza we normally spend for myself and the children, or the $9.95 for DP's stuffed crust, but I'm sure the meal cost less than $30, which is the average we spend on a pizza meal once you factor in delivery and garlic bread and a drink.

Ah well, the meal was enjoyed, we were all full (to full for jelly for dessert even!) and I've finally got this meal crossed off my menu plan, and not transferred to the "you need to make this before the ingredients go off" list. Not that I have such a list. I have a place where unused ingredients for the fortnight go - it's called pasta sauce. I do however, have a list I consult when writing my menu plans for the upcoming fortnight, and that has sections for our favourite meals, new meals I've tried and we liked wnough to make again, and meals I'd like to try out. Calzones is one I can transfer from the "try" side, to the "make agains" side, and that's something at least.

Basil & Cheese sausage rolls

Sausage Rolls
2kg sausage mince or 50-50 mince meat
2 cups breadcrumbs
2 large onions
4 celery sticks
2 cooking apples
1 large potato (opt.)
1 tbsp mixed herbs
dash pepper
dash garlic salt
1kg pkt puff pastry sheets (6 or 7 sheet pkt)

Place onions, celery, apples and potato in a food processor and mince very fine.
Place in a large bowl with the sausage mince, add breadcrumbs and mix thoroughly.
Cut pastry sheets in half and roll out a bit thinner, place sausage mince on pastry.
Wet it one side and roll into a large sausage. Cut into required lengths and bake in 220c oven for 35min.

That's the basic recipe. I've made these before, so I felt justified in tinkering a little. Not that they aren't very nice on their own mind you. But, you know me. I left out the optional potato, because we didn't have any, and used about 2, maybe 2 1/2 tbsps of chopped basil from a tube, to use it up. I skipped the mixed herbs. Then after mincing the vegetables, I realised I didn't have any breadcrumbs, so I made some with two slices of the bread I baked this morning. Fresh bread isn't ideal for breadcrumbs, but it seems to have worked ok. I also added a cup of grated cheese to the food processor while I was chopping the breadcrumbs, just for a change (and because it was in the fridge). A word of warning too - unless you roll the pastry enough (which is hard if the sheets are still too frozen, and harder if they've thawed to soggy stage) you'll need more than 6 sheets for this recipe. I used 8.

I baked my first trayful for the full 35 minutes, but I thought they were a bit dark, so the next lot came out after 23 minutes, and DP said they were too light. So the next lot I cooked for 28 minutes, and they were just right. This made 72 of varying sizes. We only ate 16 between the four of us for dinner, so the rest are going into the freezer for snack type foods and emergency dinners.

Lemon Meringue Pie

Another recipe from Rozy at the taste.com.au forums, for this fortnight's Cooks Club Challenge.

Lemon Meringue Pie
PASTRY
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tbsp icing sugar
125 gms butter
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsps water, approx
FILLING
1/3 cup cornflour
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup water
2 tsps grated lemon rind
1/3 cup lemon juice
30 gms butter
3 egg yolks
MERINGUE
3 egg whites
1/2 cup castor sugar

PASTRY
Sift flour and icing sugar into basin, rub in butter. Add lemon juice and enough water to mix to a firm dough, cover, refrigerate 30 mins. Roll pastry on lightly floured surface large enough to cover base and sides of pie plate (base measures 20cm. I usually roll pastry a bit thinner cos we dont like thick pastry, but its up to you.) Prick base well with fork. Blind bake in moderately hot oven for 10-15 mins, if you want it a little browner take the paper and weights off and put in oven again for a few minutes or until golden brown. Cool.

FILLING
Blend cornflour and sugar with water, lemon rind and lemon juice in pan, stir until smooth. Stir over heat until mixture starts to thicken at base of pan, remove from heat. Stir until mixture becomes smooth and thick. Return to heat, stir constantly until mixture boils, stir further 1 min. Remove from heat, quickly stir in butter and lightly beaten egg yolks, cool. When cool, spread into pastry case.

MERINGUE
Beat egg whites until soft peaks form, gradually beat in sugar, beat until dissolved. Spread on top of lemon filling in the pastry case, spreading to edge of pie, bake in mod oven about 10 mins or until light golden brown.

I've edited this only slightly, because it was a bit over the place, and because Rozy went back to add the bit about the blind baking. This really does shrink if you don't. In fact, mine shrunk so badly, I had to grab a storebought one while I was out getting nappies. Sure, I could have just bought more lemons, and tried again, but we're going down to Mum's for lunch tomorrow, and I a)won't have time to make an LMP when we get home, and this needed to be done before Monday, and b)wanted to take this with me to share for dessert.

Failed pastry = :(

Plus, I'd never made a shortcrust pastry pie shell before. In fact, I've never made an LMP before either. I have made meringue though. The lemon filling on this was simple to make, and tasted awesome (well, what else was I going to do with the scraped out bowl? Put it straight into the sink? I think not!) - a perfect blend of tart and sweet, leaning on the tart side. But I did something wrong with my meringue. I was whipping my egg whites by hand, and got to the soft peak stage easily enough, even if it did take me half an hour. But since the recipe said nothing about adding the sugar bit by bit, I just dumped the whole lot in, and whisked it through. The recipe said till the sugar was dissolved. Well, that only took me about 2-3 minutes. But I had a liquid then, the consistency of slightly thick pouring cream. I whisked that stuff for another half an hour, it was still glossy, not dry or granular, but all the same I was scared I'd over beaten them, and it was quarter to twelve anyway, so I poured the lot on top of my pie, and set it to baking. It cooked ok, but doesn't look nearly as pretty as everyone else's on the forums, and has nowhere near the height. Also, it seems like it will be nice and crunchy on the edges, but the middle feels a bit squashy to me.

Ah well. I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow, and I'll try to post a photo of a single slice then. At least it's only my family, and not anyone I need to try and impress!

Kids Cooking Thursday: Choc crossless buns

Now, we don't go in for religion much in our household, so we won't be glutting ourselves with Hot Cross Buns and chocolate eggs this weekend. But Hot Cross Buns were part of the Cooks Club Challenge, so I thought we'd have a go. Since we aren't too fond of mixed peel, and the regular HCB, I thought we'd go chocolate. But after looking through a heap of recipes, even one that came with my bread maker, I decided just to modify my standard roll recipe. So here it is, for other lazy type people who can't be bothered with the warm milk/bread improver/whisking and standing type steps in the standard methods.

Chocolate Hot Cross Buns (for the bread maker)
275ml water
500ml bread mix (not bread flour!)
1 1/4 tsp yeast
1 tbsp cinnamon (use dutch, it's vastly superior)
1 tbsp cocoa (likewise!)

1 cup sultanas
1 cup chocolate, cut into chunks (or choc chips)

Put the first five ingredients into the bread maker's pan, in that order. Select "dough" setting on your machine. Wait for the beeps that tell you it's time to add in your add-ins. Add the sultanas and chocolate. Wait for the rising cycle to finish. Form into roll shapes, and place on tray, about 1cm apart. Cover with glad wrap or a tea towel, and let rise again for about 30 mins, or till doubled in size. Bake at 200C for 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre of a bun comes out clean. Pipe on crosses with melted cooking chocolate (if desired). Serve warm.

Melty butter goodness!

These came out a little denser than I would have liked, but they didn't get enough rising in, as I got interupted by a woman wanting us to go back to our old phone company in the middle of the process. And they had a definite crunch to the crust. DP says this is normal, and it's been so long I'll have to take his word for it, though I'm pretty sure I'd remember if I'd ever had any like that. But they were gooey, and chocolatey, and ever so tasty, and after a few bites, I forgot I wasn't 100% happy with them. And the kids had a ball, rolling them into balls, and getting their hands filthy (and picking the sultanas and chocolate out of the raw dough and eating it when they thought I wasn't looking!) They didn't double in size after being made into buns, so they didn't touch each other in the oven, and that may have been the problem with the crunch, and the density as well. See?

These were actually more of a brown cocoa induced colour, not this golden

They made a great dessert though, I had two, and they were very filling. I'm looking forward to seeing how these go toasted under the griller tomorrow.

Pizza Scrolls - partying the Blog Party way.

Ah, at last. I've been blogging for *quick check* oh! Exactly a month! Wow. That flew by. Well, as I was saying, I've been blogging for a whole month now, and I'm finally achieving the main goal I had when I started blogging. I wanted to take part in one of Stephanie's Blog Parties, over @ Dispensing Happiness. Last month I was just too busy, and too tardily informed, to break out the deep fryer for fried foods, but this month's theme is ever so kid friendly, and I had the perfect recipe too... It's Pizza Time!

Now, if you look back to my first ever post, the original Menu Plan Monday, posted one month ago today, you'll see that I had this recipe down to be made on the last day (Sunday) of that week. If you were to skip ahead one week to the next Menu Plan Monday post, you'll that I did indeed make them, I wasn't impress, but everyone else was, so I said I'd make them again. (Or you could just take my word for all of that, and not have to dive through my archives at all.)

Recipe here for mini scroll pizzas!

For those who aren't aware, blog party is a monthly blog event, in the form of a cocktail party. All food must be able to be eaten with one hand, and be provided with some kind of beverage to go in the other hand.

These cute little scrolls pass the one hand test... DP is proving it to me right now as he types away with his other hand. Just a few tips that don't seem to be on the recipe: if your oven in fanforced, drop the time down to 25 mins (and the temp down to 200°C if it's a hot oven like mine), and don't try and substitute greased alfoil for the baking paper... it doesn't really work.

As for a drink, well Stephanie, I'm sorry I can't be more inventive, as tired as I am, but I did have a couple of suggestions. What is the perfect drink with pizza? Coke of course! And what can you do with Coke? Well, if you are strange, like myself, or my sister who taught it to me, or the Yugoslavian (I think) ex-DJ who taught it to her, you mix it with red wine. A cheap trick I used many a time in my misspent youth to make the most unpalatable goon juice taste drinkable, I even developed a fondness for this drink, but failed to ever convince any of my friends it was good. I did get a few to try it, but even they were of the opinion I was nuts. Mix red wine (cask of course - we're thinking teenager's budget here!) with Coke, in what ever quantities you prefer.

I'd post a photo of this too, but since I am 29 weeks pregnant, I currently don't consume alcohol or caffeine, and so have none of the necessary ingredients on hand. Also no way of getting rid of said drink once photographed, since DP doesn't drink either of the included beverages, and the housemate is still on holidays.

I'd better go and pack some of these away into a freezer container for an easy Sunday dinner one Grandparent visiting night, or spur of the moment picnic food. I have to be quick, because DP (who was asleep during dinner - catching up on the last four nights!) has already demolished five of them, and blatantly admits he has no plans of stopping at all. Thus endangering almost a whole batch... out of 24, we only have 13 left! Good thing I made a double batch. I've tried to like these, but you really have to like scones to like these I think, and I just can't do it. But, they are tasty enough to have as a meal, I can eat them without making a face (not something every scone can boast of! lol) and DP and the kids like them. Like I said last time... a keeper!

This has been an entry for Blog Party #32: Pizza Party, hosted by Stephanie @ Dispensing Happiness

Kids Cooking Thursday: Toblerone Muffins

Mmmmm... muffins

The muffin itself was a bit bland. Needed more cocoa or sugar, or just a lot more chopped Toblerone. Perhaps if I'd chopped it more finely, then used another bar chopped chunky. The chunky bits on top when gooey, then chewy as they cooled down. Very tasty.

It could be from the melted chocolate, but this was the first muffin I've (we've) made that wasn't too dry for my taste. Even if the mix was so stiff I had to blob the mix in the cases instead of pour it. Hence the ugly shapes.

But they were very yummy. We all had two for afternoon tea.

Anyone got any suggestions for Master Three and Miss Two to cook next week?

Oh, and by the way, I'd just like to apologise for the crappy, crappy photos I take. All I have is the dodgy camera on my phone, because that's the only one we can get the photos off. We have an old Kodak digital that takes nice photos, but it doesn't have a usb connecting cable, and DP reinstalled his OS, and now can't get the drivers for it anymore. So until I win the lottery, or someone gives me a brand new camera that either connects via usb or takes SD or MMC cards, you're stuck with crummy phone photos. Sorry. Here's a crummy photo of Miss Two to make up for it.

Isn't she adorable?

Pasta with cheese and chive bread

I'll be the first person to admit that I can be lazy. Ok, that I am lazy. But sometimes I can be lazy in particularly obtuse ways. Take this recipe for cheese and chive bread for instance.

It calls for the butter to be rubbed in to the flour using a food processor. Well, it doesn't say 'rubbed in' precisely, but I knew that's what they were talking about from back in my days of Tech Foods in high school. In a food processor, this would have taken all of five minutes right? Perfect for a lazy person. But here's the thing. I quite willingly spent about 20 minutes using the old fashioned bowl and wooden spoon method, not because I'm a tradionalist, or because we don't have a food processor in the house - we do, our housemate has a great one he never uses. No, it's because I was too lazy to a) clear a space on the bench for the thing, and b) put it all together, but mostly c) then have to wash all the itty bitty parts, instead of using a spoon and bowl I'd be getting dirty later in the recipe anyway. Yeah, it takes effort to be this slack.

Other than that, I followed the recipe pretty much spot on. While it was baking, I threw some leftover chopped chives in a pan with some chopped Australian garlic (the chinese lady at the fruit and veg shop said it was a lot stronger than normal garlic you get, and she's right... perfect for us, as now I only need two cloves instead of four) and some sliced green parts of leek, grabbed from a bag I'm saving for stock for next week's soup. Fried it up with some mince, added a tin of diced tomatoes, and half a jar of pasta sauce, and left that to simmer over low heat for about half an hour. Which was just long enough for me to boil up some water for pasta and do half the dishes. And for once, everything was ready together.

If I'd had had any leftovers of the sauce or bread (or the pasta with sauce mixed through for that matter) I could have frozen it, but the whole lot got demolished. I think I better make two loaves of that bread next time, as DP ate half the loaf by himself! The kids ate about half their slice each, though they both said it was yummy. But then Miss Two only had about three bites of her pasta, which she normally likes, and Master Three only finished his pasta for the promise of fruit salad (ok, tinned, I'll admit it, but what else can you do with a tin of fruit salad?)

The bread wasvery heavy, so maybe that was it. But it didn't feel it till you'd eaten it... it was just so light and crumbly, not at all dense. All in all, not a bad effort for a lazy, unmotivated Saturday.

Kids Cooking Thursday: Chocolate Chip Cookies

Every Thursday is cooking day for the kids in our house. We made the best biscuits today. They are a bit crumbly, and a touch lacking in substance, but there is no eggs in it, so kids (and pregnant women *grinz*) can eat the dough raw. We got the recipe off the back of the chocolate chip packet and it was so incredibly easy, I have to share. I'd link to the webpage at the bottom of the recipe, and point you to the recipe there, but the page is broken. The front page is there, but not a single link or search works. So I'll type it out for you here.

Yummy (egg free) choc chip cookies
Makes 30

225g butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk (I think we ended up with more like 1/3 cup though)
2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder (or of course, you can do what we did, and just use 2 cups S/R flour)
3/4 cup milk choc chips (we used a whole cup)

Preheat the oven to 190°C (Our is fan forced, and our first batch scorched a little, so I turned it down to 180°C for the rest of the biscuits... adjust as needed for your own oven).
Cream butter and sugar in a medium bowl (larger bowl for younger kids... unless you like wearing flour!). Beat in sweetened condensed milk. Cream until the mixture is light and fluffy. Sift flour and baking powder. Stir into butter mixture with choc chips (We did this as two seperate steps, as it was getting heavy for Miss Two to stir).
Roll tablespoonfuls of mixture into balls. Place on a lined oven tray. (Or a slightly greased non-stick tray)
Press biscuits down to flatten. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes or until the biscuits are golden brown.

These do spread a bit, and apparently the 'squooshing' step is almost as fun as 'mixing with a wooden spoon' (a song off one of the Fairies dvds we've borrowed from the library).

It makes a very crumbly biscuit, no soft and chewy cake like things here. Certainly don't give them to the kids to eat if you are paranoid about crumbs and mess. But just out of the oven, and cooled down only enough to be able to pick them up they are soft, if still crumbly, and very, very more-ish. There's a faint hint of caramel, from the milk, but mostly they taste like butter, not suprising since that's the main ingredient. Could have used more choc chips, though we were pushing the limits the mixture could hold... but there's no such thing as too much chocolate. If I were to make again, I'd probably just tip in the whole bag, since I doubt we have more than 1/4 cup left in the packet. We only managed to get 25, so more chocolate might get us to the 30 point lol.

But, as you can see, the kids liked them...

"I can has cookie?" "I gots one!"

DP went and asked Master Three if he could have one, and was refused, until Daddy made it clear he wanted one off the cooling rack in the kitchen, and wasn't intending to steal one off Master Three's plate. Then he was allowed to get himself one.

Very tasty. And, DP has offered to buy pizza for dinner, so I don't have to do anymore cooking today. Feeling very accomplished. :D

Chicken & Vegetable Pies

Ok, so a 34°C day wasn't the best scenario to make pies. Not reading the recipe all the way through properly since having seen it the first time wasn't a bright idea either. Consquently, I had no chicken stock or tarragon, and no wine (not that I'd had used that anyway though).

And I only started 45 mins before dinner was due. Needless to say, dinner was late. By almost over an hour. But it was worth the wait. and since we only ate half the pies, I get to freeze some before I have to melt in the kitchen again.

It really wasn't that hard though. I just should have either made the filling last night, or not started preheating the oven till the filling was done. Our oven is fanforced, so that meant the entire time I was frying and stirring, I had 200°C air blasting at the top of my legs - like I wasn't hot enough!

On the plus side, my frozen puff pastry defrosted without a problem. On the minus side, it got far too hot by the time I needed it, and I had to very carefully coax it into pies, without it falling apart and stretching to nothing.

But, miracle of miracles, the oven forgave me all this, and somehow managed to produce some lovely pies. The overstretched, misshapen blobs I placed in, came out as lovely, puffed, flaky, rustic looking pies. Of course, everyone was starving by the time they were done, but since they were so piping hot, we still had time to admire them a bit before eating.



Finished off with a bowlful of homemade strawberry and passionfruit ice creams, I think for once my family got a great meal.