Showing posts with label Cooking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cooking. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Question of the Day
Which would you say is more fattening (or perhaps I mean less healthy)? Frying chicken, or coating it in mayonnaise before baking? I noticed a recipe for Parmesan crusted chicken, and since I'm absolutely crazy about Parmesan cheese at the moment, I had to try it. It tasted great, and was incredibly tender. Cut it with a fork tender. Yum, yum. I'm also crazy about chicken coated in Italian Seasoned bread crumbs, so this recipe was a winner. But what about the saturated fat and sodium content?
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Past Time Photos of Parker Were Posted
I haven't posted any pictures of Parker in a while, so here are a few to bring you up to date. He had a great time this morning playing with his friend Joshua. Joshua and his mother got to spend several hours with us this morning and we all had a lot of fun. I love how having a friend in the house makes me a more responsible mother. We played in the yard as we never can when it's just the two of us. I made chicken pasta salad for lunch, when I could have chosen to watch tv or read while he was napping instead. Parker wouldn't eat any of the food I made but at least it was available to him, my friend enjoyed it, and the kitchen got cleaned up to boot. Sometimes I wish I could have a friend over every day.
Kelly's Question of the Day
I like olives, and so I had looked forward to adding green olives to the pasta that I cooked all last week for lunch. Unfortunately the olives tasted too much of the vinegar they were packed in, so my question is this: How do you get your olives to taste like olives instead of tasting of vinegar, which is so much less delicious?
My pasta tasted more like olives when I drizzled it with olive oil. It was very disappointing.
My pasta tasted more like olives when I drizzled it with olive oil. It was very disappointing.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Menu Planning revisited
Early in the life of this blog I complained that I had a hard time making up grocery lists before going to the store. Jim's sister, Julie, came to my aid with some tips and advice on how she makes the job a bit more manageable (including a delicious recipe for Calzones). I'd post the reference, but I'm too lazy to look it up this morning.
A few weeks ago my friend Melanie gave me a wonderful tool that has made my menu planning and grocery list making so much easier. It's so simple it'll probably make me sound a bit ridiculous. Believe me, I don't mind at all. It's so funny how some things are so obvious I would probably never figure them out on my own in a million years.
It's a calendar: a little pocket calendar with just enough room to write out what I plan to cook each night. Here's why I think this tool is actually working for me. There's something magical about having someone hand you something and tell you, "Here. I thought you could use this to write out your menu plans."
Writing out a menu plan on a calendar is certainly not a new idea. It's isn't even new to me. How many of my friends, including my mother, have suggested such a thing over the years? Not to mention books that I have read. Only now I actually have a calendar that is dedicated only to that purpose. And you know what? It's actually working for me.
How suggestible I am, my husband might point out.
Here's how it's working for me so far:
Most of the time I'm only writing down main courses. I don't often have the presence of mind to plan out the entire meal before I head to the grocery store. For side items, I try to keep certain staples in the house (potatoes, frozen vegetables, rice), and perhaps a few days after I have listed out my main courses I can go back in and add sides to the plan. I might buy lettuce at the store on a whim or I might not. I have a love/hate relationship with lettuce.
The first two week plan was so easy it was ridiculous. There were several dishes I knew that I tended to make over and over, and so it was easy for me to write those down. The second two week plan was a little harder because I needed to be a little more creative. Next time I may simply repeat my first two week plan, but spend some time thinking about what other recipes I might add to my repertoire. That seems like a more manageable plan than trying to come up with my whole entire kitchen life all at once.
The other way in which the calendar is making my life easier is this: having a menu plan has provided other opportunities to make my cooking life a little easier. Marla Cilley of Flylady.com always says to decide in the morning what you are going to do for dinner that night. Now that I have a menu plan listed on my calendar it is so much easier for me to remember to take the meat out of the refrigerator to thaw. I can even chop up onions early if I feel up to it. And so far, we've only had to make a McDonald's run once, and only once have I cooked a frozen pizza off schedule. So far, so good. I hope that I can keep it up, but so far it seems entirely manageable.
A few weeks ago my friend Melanie gave me a wonderful tool that has made my menu planning and grocery list making so much easier. It's so simple it'll probably make me sound a bit ridiculous. Believe me, I don't mind at all. It's so funny how some things are so obvious I would probably never figure them out on my own in a million years.
It's a calendar: a little pocket calendar with just enough room to write out what I plan to cook each night. Here's why I think this tool is actually working for me. There's something magical about having someone hand you something and tell you, "Here. I thought you could use this to write out your menu plans."
Writing out a menu plan on a calendar is certainly not a new idea. It's isn't even new to me. How many of my friends, including my mother, have suggested such a thing over the years? Not to mention books that I have read. Only now I actually have a calendar that is dedicated only to that purpose. And you know what? It's actually working for me.
How suggestible I am, my husband might point out.
Here's how it's working for me so far:
Most of the time I'm only writing down main courses. I don't often have the presence of mind to plan out the entire meal before I head to the grocery store. For side items, I try to keep certain staples in the house (potatoes, frozen vegetables, rice), and perhaps a few days after I have listed out my main courses I can go back in and add sides to the plan. I might buy lettuce at the store on a whim or I might not. I have a love/hate relationship with lettuce.
The first two week plan was so easy it was ridiculous. There were several dishes I knew that I tended to make over and over, and so it was easy for me to write those down. The second two week plan was a little harder because I needed to be a little more creative. Next time I may simply repeat my first two week plan, but spend some time thinking about what other recipes I might add to my repertoire. That seems like a more manageable plan than trying to come up with my whole entire kitchen life all at once.
The other way in which the calendar is making my life easier is this: having a menu plan has provided other opportunities to make my cooking life a little easier. Marla Cilley of Flylady.com always says to decide in the morning what you are going to do for dinner that night. Now that I have a menu plan listed on my calendar it is so much easier for me to remember to take the meat out of the refrigerator to thaw. I can even chop up onions early if I feel up to it. And so far, we've only had to make a McDonald's run once, and only once have I cooked a frozen pizza off schedule. So far, so good. I hope that I can keep it up, but so far it seems entirely manageable.
Baking Disaster/Baking Triumph, Part II
So many of these things seem to be common sense, but obviously, when it comes to cooking, I've been a slow starter. Virtually every time I step into the kitchen it is an alien experiment, which is funny considering I do it every day.
Here's how I saved the day as far as Sunday School was concerned. Last week when I went grocery shopping, I went ahead and picked up a special ingredient so I could make scones to take to church just in case the Overnight Bubble Bread (see previous post) didn't work. I'm really glad I did.
I have a really simple recipe for scones using Bisquick. I've made these many times on a whim for breakfast, or in anticipation of a morning visit from a friend, but I had never made the glaze to go over the scones because, while the main recipe allows milk as a substitution for heavy cream, the glaze recipe does not. The scones as I normally make them (with whole milk) are more dry than my husband prefers. Since I had actually planned this in advance, however, I already had heavy cream in the refrigerator waiting to go.
The cream made all the difference.
The glaze only called for half a cup of confectioner's sugar and one tablespoon of heavy cream, but when I mixed the cream in with a spoon I wound up with a mound of sugar with a little bit of sludge floating in the middle. So I added another tablespoon of cream and that particular problem was solved. The glaze still looked more like a paste than a glaze, so I put it on top of the oven to warm while the dough baked.
The dough mixed up fairly well with the appropriate addition of cream, but some of the dry ingredients didn't want to incorporate, so I formed the dough into a ball and poured some additional cream over the top. I worked the rest of the dough together with my hands and then flattened the whole thing on a greased baking sheet. Usually you would cut the dough into eight pieces before baking, but I did more since I would be feeding lots of people.
Coming out of the oven, the scones seemed a little underdone in the middle. I couldn't just drizzle the glaze over the top because it was too thick, but I did what I could under the circumstances, and it turned out quite all right. The glaze melted as it hit the hot bread, making it a little bit easier to spread. By the time I got the plate to church the goopier pieces had become more solid. By the time Sunday School started it was perfect!
These scones were much more moist than those I had made before. The flavor was terrific, and the glaze really did make a difference to the taste. I may have just discovered a new item to add to my list of refrigerator staples: heavy cream.
While I'm talking about cream, I'd just like to mention that I've been using dried nonfat milk in my coffee the last couple of weeks, and it seems to work just as well if not better than commercial dry creamers. I haven't looked into the price differential yet, but my idea is that if I keep dry milk around the house to use in my coffee, I'll at least have some recourse in a cooking emergency requiring milk.
Here's how I saved the day as far as Sunday School was concerned. Last week when I went grocery shopping, I went ahead and picked up a special ingredient so I could make scones to take to church just in case the Overnight Bubble Bread (see previous post) didn't work. I'm really glad I did.
I have a really simple recipe for scones using Bisquick. I've made these many times on a whim for breakfast, or in anticipation of a morning visit from a friend, but I had never made the glaze to go over the scones because, while the main recipe allows milk as a substitution for heavy cream, the glaze recipe does not. The scones as I normally make them (with whole milk) are more dry than my husband prefers. Since I had actually planned this in advance, however, I already had heavy cream in the refrigerator waiting to go.
The cream made all the difference.
The glaze only called for half a cup of confectioner's sugar and one tablespoon of heavy cream, but when I mixed the cream in with a spoon I wound up with a mound of sugar with a little bit of sludge floating in the middle. So I added another tablespoon of cream and that particular problem was solved. The glaze still looked more like a paste than a glaze, so I put it on top of the oven to warm while the dough baked.
The dough mixed up fairly well with the appropriate addition of cream, but some of the dry ingredients didn't want to incorporate, so I formed the dough into a ball and poured some additional cream over the top. I worked the rest of the dough together with my hands and then flattened the whole thing on a greased baking sheet. Usually you would cut the dough into eight pieces before baking, but I did more since I would be feeding lots of people.
Coming out of the oven, the scones seemed a little underdone in the middle. I couldn't just drizzle the glaze over the top because it was too thick, but I did what I could under the circumstances, and it turned out quite all right. The glaze melted as it hit the hot bread, making it a little bit easier to spread. By the time I got the plate to church the goopier pieces had become more solid. By the time Sunday School started it was perfect!
These scones were much more moist than those I had made before. The flavor was terrific, and the glaze really did make a difference to the taste. I may have just discovered a new item to add to my list of refrigerator staples: heavy cream.
While I'm talking about cream, I'd just like to mention that I've been using dried nonfat milk in my coffee the last couple of weeks, and it seems to work just as well if not better than commercial dry creamers. I haven't looked into the price differential yet, but my idea is that if I keep dry milk around the house to use in my coffee, I'll at least have some recourse in a cooking emergency requiring milk.
Baking Disaster/Baking Triumph--for Melanie
Sunday morning I was supposed to bring in some sort of snack for my father's Sunday School class to enjoy. I had several ideas last week of what I might make, but I settled on Overnight Bubble Bread, a recipe to be found in Not Just Beans, a cookbook given to me by my cooking/homemaking mentor, Melanie.
It's a simple recipe in which you may dip partially thawed frozen rolls in melted butter, followed with a fragrant mixture of sugar and cinnamon. The bread then rises overnight, to be baked for half an hour in the morning. Very simple.
Or it might have been, had I read the package directions for the frozen dough instead of relying on what was written in the book. Perhaps the refrigerator rising method works perfectly well for the dough that can be made per another recipe in the book, but it doesn't work for the rolls you find in your grocer's freezer case. Here's what happened:
The book said to let the frozen rolls thaw for fifteen minutes before assembling the recipe. I did this, of course, but the dough was still frozen pretty solid by the time fifteen minutes had expired, so I put the entire bag in the microwave for some small amount of time (maybe as long as 5 minutes) on 30% power. Then I melted the butter in a cereal bowl.
Now I do several recipes where chicken is dipped first in a moistening agent, and then in dry breadcrumbs or some similar mixture. I have found in that process that it works better if I wash and dry my chicken and then coat all of the pieces in the moistening agent before starting to dip them in the crumbs. This helps me avoid getting crud caked on my fingers, and it's faster. I thought I'd do the same with my frozen rolls.
It didn't work the same way.
By the time I had dipped several rolls, I realized that the butter had been frozen in the process, and frozen butter does not hold spices well at all. That's what I learned Saturday night. Sunday morning I learned that frozen rolls will not rise in the fridge. They need a much warmer temperature to activate the yeast.
Sunday afternoon I learned something new.
I had used the entire bag of frozen rolls to make my bubble bread, so my grandmother's bunt pan was filled to the top with little frozen pellets. By the time we made it home from church that afternoon, the top of the oven, where I had left the rolls to rise, looked like it had been overtaken by tribbles!
Puffy bread dough was everywhere, spilling out of the pan. We tried to push some of the dough back into the pan with our fingers, but all that did was cause some of the dough to fall. When I say fall, I mean the dough went flat, and did not rise again.
I didn't have time to bake the bread that afternoon, and I was afraid that the recipe had turned into a disaster. Next morning all the dough appeared to have fallen. I threw it in the oven anyway for the requisite amount of time at the requisite temperature.
The breakfast treat that came out of the oven was delicious, like a cinnamon roll large enough to feed several people. It would have been even better had I used chopped nuts, which were optional to the recipe.
Next time I try this recipe I'll do it right and see what comes out.
My kitchen still smells like yeast.
It's a simple recipe in which you may dip partially thawed frozen rolls in melted butter, followed with a fragrant mixture of sugar and cinnamon. The bread then rises overnight, to be baked for half an hour in the morning. Very simple.
Or it might have been, had I read the package directions for the frozen dough instead of relying on what was written in the book. Perhaps the refrigerator rising method works perfectly well for the dough that can be made per another recipe in the book, but it doesn't work for the rolls you find in your grocer's freezer case. Here's what happened:
The book said to let the frozen rolls thaw for fifteen minutes before assembling the recipe. I did this, of course, but the dough was still frozen pretty solid by the time fifteen minutes had expired, so I put the entire bag in the microwave for some small amount of time (maybe as long as 5 minutes) on 30% power. Then I melted the butter in a cereal bowl.
Now I do several recipes where chicken is dipped first in a moistening agent, and then in dry breadcrumbs or some similar mixture. I have found in that process that it works better if I wash and dry my chicken and then coat all of the pieces in the moistening agent before starting to dip them in the crumbs. This helps me avoid getting crud caked on my fingers, and it's faster. I thought I'd do the same with my frozen rolls.
It didn't work the same way.
By the time I had dipped several rolls, I realized that the butter had been frozen in the process, and frozen butter does not hold spices well at all. That's what I learned Saturday night. Sunday morning I learned that frozen rolls will not rise in the fridge. They need a much warmer temperature to activate the yeast.
Sunday afternoon I learned something new.
I had used the entire bag of frozen rolls to make my bubble bread, so my grandmother's bunt pan was filled to the top with little frozen pellets. By the time we made it home from church that afternoon, the top of the oven, where I had left the rolls to rise, looked like it had been overtaken by tribbles!
Puffy bread dough was everywhere, spilling out of the pan. We tried to push some of the dough back into the pan with our fingers, but all that did was cause some of the dough to fall. When I say fall, I mean the dough went flat, and did not rise again.
I didn't have time to bake the bread that afternoon, and I was afraid that the recipe had turned into a disaster. Next morning all the dough appeared to have fallen. I threw it in the oven anyway for the requisite amount of time at the requisite temperature.
The breakfast treat that came out of the oven was delicious, like a cinnamon roll large enough to feed several people. It would have been even better had I used chopped nuts, which were optional to the recipe.
Next time I try this recipe I'll do it right and see what comes out.
My kitchen still smells like yeast.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Bragging on a Great Christmas Gift
My mother-in-law gave me something called a Potato Baken Bag for Christmas. It's just the coolest cooking implement I own. All it is is a fabric bag with one of those pocket closures just like on the old cheap sandwich bags. You wash your potato, wrap it up in a paper towel, and close it in the bag. You can then bake the potato in the microwave oven in approximately 4 minutes, and when it is done you can cut the potato with a fork. You don't even have to stab the potato with a fork before cooking.
Last night I used the bag to cook a large sweet potato. Since it was so large I went ahead and put it in for 8 minutes. When it was done I mashed it up with my potato masher, sprinkled it with salt, and then poured waffle syrup on it. It was really good.
I don't know how you feel about microwaves, but the thing I like about this preparation method is that you don't lose the nutrients you would otherwise lose by boiling, for mashed potatoes. And, it is so fast and easy that I can throw potatoes in with a meal at the very last minute if I find I need to. I don't know what the fiber contact of the bag is, or if there is anything special about the fabric.
Last night I used the bag to cook a large sweet potato. Since it was so large I went ahead and put it in for 8 minutes. When it was done I mashed it up with my potato masher, sprinkled it with salt, and then poured waffle syrup on it. It was really good.
I don't know how you feel about microwaves, but the thing I like about this preparation method is that you don't lose the nutrients you would otherwise lose by boiling, for mashed potatoes. And, it is so fast and easy that I can throw potatoes in with a meal at the very last minute if I find I need to. I don't know what the fiber contact of the bag is, or if there is anything special about the fabric.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Cooking Basics
Sometime after Parker was born I picked up Julie Powell's book, Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, at the library. The book was inspired by this woman's blog where she shared her experience cooking her way through volume one of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It was entertaining reading, and her one-by-one in-order approach made sense to one who has always been slightly overwhelmed while slogging through books like Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book.
Anyway, Jamey shared that she rarely uses recipes and over the weekend she kindly loaned me How to Cook Without a Book by Pam Anderson. It's funny that I had picked the book up before, at the same time as Julie & Julia, and while the book seems to be everything I have ever wanted in a cookbook, my own tiny apartment kitchen was hardly up to challenge.
Times they have changed. My current kitchen, while not ideal, is much more suitable to the tasks involved in actual daily cooking. I realize that I'll have to take it slowly and really try and digest what Anderson is suggesting. I cannot simply absorb the information through my fingertips as I would certainly prefer. A wonderful woman named Alice once suggested that I use my academic strengths to tackle some of my non-academic problems (cooking, housekeeping, etc.), and that is how I mean to proceed.
Pleasant coincidences: 1. A lot of the content of the book, I think, will help me remember and build on things Melanie taught me earlier in the year. 2. Anderson notes that she prepared a recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking as one of her early cooking experiments. 3. She also notes that her mother, grandmother and aunts would sometimes turn to The Auburn Cook Book when they needed refreshing on a formula, a book I was given as a wedding gift just over seven years ago. I never figured out how to reduce that book to formulas on my own, but now, thanks to Anderson and de Simone, the idea has been implanted. I think it is interesting how book reference and relate to each other even across genres.
Note: I plan to add a photo of my new kitchen later, that is assuming I ever get it clean enough to photograph again. My old kitchen was posted earlier this month when I wrote about the Possum in my kitchen.
Anyway, Jamey shared that she rarely uses recipes and over the weekend she kindly loaned me How to Cook Without a Book by Pam Anderson. It's funny that I had picked the book up before, at the same time as Julie & Julia, and while the book seems to be everything I have ever wanted in a cookbook, my own tiny apartment kitchen was hardly up to challenge.
Times they have changed. My current kitchen, while not ideal, is much more suitable to the tasks involved in actual daily cooking. I realize that I'll have to take it slowly and really try and digest what Anderson is suggesting. I cannot simply absorb the information through my fingertips as I would certainly prefer. A wonderful woman named Alice once suggested that I use my academic strengths to tackle some of my non-academic problems (cooking, housekeeping, etc.), and that is how I mean to proceed.
Pleasant coincidences: 1. A lot of the content of the book, I think, will help me remember and build on things Melanie taught me earlier in the year. 2. Anderson notes that she prepared a recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking as one of her early cooking experiments. 3. She also notes that her mother, grandmother and aunts would sometimes turn to The Auburn Cook Book when they needed refreshing on a formula, a book I was given as a wedding gift just over seven years ago. I never figured out how to reduce that book to formulas on my own, but now, thanks to Anderson and de Simone, the idea has been implanted. I think it is interesting how book reference and relate to each other even across genres.
Note: I plan to add a photo of my new kitchen later, that is assuming I ever get it clean enough to photograph again. My old kitchen was posted earlier this month when I wrote about the Possum in my kitchen.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Afraid of Knives
I bought a Spaghetti Squash from Walmart on Friday as I noted in my exciting Walmart post. The idea was to cook it up for Parker so he could get more yellow vegetables into his diet. Why Spaghetti Squash? Because I thought I recalled reading about Spaghetti Squash amidst my recent recipe forage, or maybe it was in one of those wonderful email lists to which I have subscribed. Anyway, now that I possess the beast, I can't find where I read about it.
I am therfore preparing the squash according to the baking directions found on this website: http://www.fabulousfoods.com/features/featuring/spagsquash.html. I've pierced the sucker with fork and knife. The fork didn't seem to work all that well. The skin is thick and the fork's tines don't seem to reach very deep. The knife led me to the title of this post. I haven't cut myself this morning, but I found myself becoming more and more fearful of the blade, so I gave up on the knife in short order. I haven't put the squash in the oven yet, and I haven't figured out which of the recipes I am going to try, but I'll keep you posted. What an adventure!
Update (1:12 pm):
The squash is out of the oven. It smelled wonderful while cooking--more like a dessert than I would have expected, slightly sweet and buttery, even with nothing added to it. It's been sitting in its dish for about 20-30 minutes now, but it's still too hot to the touch for me start working with it. It has shriveled slightly while cooling, and the skin feels thick to the touch. Parker and I may choose to take a walk instead of sitting around here waiting for the squash to cool.
Update (3:00 pm):
I really am a novice with this stuff. Around 2:30, once Parker was down for his nap, I cut open my squash and found out why it's called spaghetti.
The seeds were a challenge. I started by pulling the seeds out with my fingers because it didn't look like the type of network I could simply cut out with a knife; squishy, slimy and not very affective. The fork seemed like a more likely option. Still, there has to be an easier way to do this. These are not the kinds of things they ever think to tell you. The flesh came away easily once the seeds were removed, and I now have two quart sized bags of spaghetti squash to my credit.
I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with them.
I am therfore preparing the squash according to the baking directions found on this website: http://www.fabulousfoods.com/features/featuring/spagsquash.html. I've pierced the sucker with fork and knife. The fork didn't seem to work all that well. The skin is thick and the fork's tines don't seem to reach very deep. The knife led me to the title of this post. I haven't cut myself this morning, but I found myself becoming more and more fearful of the blade, so I gave up on the knife in short order. I haven't put the squash in the oven yet, and I haven't figured out which of the recipes I am going to try, but I'll keep you posted. What an adventure!
Update (1:12 pm):
The squash is out of the oven. It smelled wonderful while cooking--more like a dessert than I would have expected, slightly sweet and buttery, even with nothing added to it. It's been sitting in its dish for about 20-30 minutes now, but it's still too hot to the touch for me start working with it. It has shriveled slightly while cooling, and the skin feels thick to the touch. Parker and I may choose to take a walk instead of sitting around here waiting for the squash to cool.
Update (3:00 pm):
I really am a novice with this stuff. Around 2:30, once Parker was down for his nap, I cut open my squash and found out why it's called spaghetti.
The seeds were a challenge. I started by pulling the seeds out with my fingers because it didn't look like the type of network I could simply cut out with a knife; squishy, slimy and not very affective. The fork seemed like a more likely option. Still, there has to be an easier way to do this. These are not the kinds of things they ever think to tell you. The flesh came away easily once the seeds were removed, and I now have two quart sized bags of spaghetti squash to my credit.
I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with them.
Question of the Day, Pizza Edition
We tried Julie's Calzone recipe last night (http://treasuresandjuls.blogspot.com/2007/11/post-2-recipes.html) and it was delicious, probably a new family favorite as Michael is a huge cheese fan. I don't typically like ricotta, and used the Cottage Cheese substitution. It mixed in beautifully with the other, drier cheeses, and probably provided some needed moisture to help the melting (I'm speculating)--I'm trying to figure out how cooking works now, not simply what to do.
This recipe was the first time I have ever added herbs and actually recognized their effect on the flavor, a really big deal for me. I really could smell the Oregano this time (as separate from the dried garlic), and tasted the difference between before and after, even though I was still using the same aged spices that have been in my spice-cabinet for years.
The one problem I had was, having never used pizza dough before, refrigerated or homemade, I didn't handle it properly. I unrolled the dough from the container just as I would do with refrigerated crescent rolls, but the shape looked funny and I couldn't see how to make it into a large circle. Instead, and without consideration, I mushed the dough together, and that did not work very well. I wound up using my roller to try to flatten the dough out, but never really succeeded. The result was a crust that was much too thick, and not nearly large enough to contain the entire filling. My Calzone came out, not as a fritter like half-circle, but more like a lump of shapeless bread.
The taste is what really matters, I realize, but I'd like to improve my presentation for next time. How is refrigerator pizza dough supposed to be handled?
This recipe was the first time I have ever added herbs and actually recognized their effect on the flavor, a really big deal for me. I really could smell the Oregano this time (as separate from the dried garlic), and tasted the difference between before and after, even though I was still using the same aged spices that have been in my spice-cabinet for years.
The one problem I had was, having never used pizza dough before, refrigerated or homemade, I didn't handle it properly. I unrolled the dough from the container just as I would do with refrigerated crescent rolls, but the shape looked funny and I couldn't see how to make it into a large circle. Instead, and without consideration, I mushed the dough together, and that did not work very well. I wound up using my roller to try to flatten the dough out, but never really succeeded. The result was a crust that was much too thick, and not nearly large enough to contain the entire filling. My Calzone came out, not as a fritter like half-circle, but more like a lump of shapeless bread.
The taste is what really matters, I realize, but I'd like to improve my presentation for next time. How is refrigerator pizza dough supposed to be handled?
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