Mix it up Monday - Leftovers for Lunch

Yeah, I’m late with this. Monday is practically over – well not really but over half anyway. It’s been a day where I burned myself on cookie sheets and splattered spaghetti sauce everywhere so writing about food didn’t sound like something I wanted to do. Oh well. It’ll be mostly pics anyway because it’s too cold to type.

Last night I decided to try calzone dough in the mixer and it worked fabulously! But, I’ve made them with the girls for years and there’s something about kneading the dough that I missed. I guess we’ll see if I stick to the mixer for this particular recipe or not.

Calzones are the one thing I have lots of pictures of for the cookbook but the girls decided this time to make extra big portions so they could take the leftovers in their lunches today. Since that fell under my goal for mix it up Monday, I said great, let’s double it.

So we did. I used the Calzone Napoli dough recipe from Above & Beyond Parsley (yes, that book again) with the crushed tomato sauce recipe from American Pie by Peter Reinhart. I use the Neo-Neapolitan dough from this cookbook when I make pizza and it rocks!

The fun part of this is the girls always do their own thing. I give them each a ball of dough and let then do whatever they want. Within reason – they don’t get to throw it at each other or anything.

D3 isn’t a fan of red sauce so she just spreads her dough into a round cake pan and tops it with layers of pepperoni and pounds of cheese. I’m not kidding, I have to cut her off on the cheese! This is her masterpiece:

Pepperoni cheese bread anyone?

 

D2 decided she doesn’t like hers to be rolled up. She wanted a little sauce and mostly cheese. We forgot to buy the red peppers she wanted so she settled for the hidden pepperoni or two.  It was kind of like a pizza without using the pizza stone. Not real appetizing looking but she said it tasted great. That’s what counts right?

is it a pizza or an unrolled calzone? is there a difference?

 

D1 opted for the rolled up look with a seam down the center. She’s a sauce and cheese girl. We use a blend of parm, mozzarella, asiago, romano and provolone. They all love fennel too so that’s what you see on the top. She once told me my stomach after surgery looked like the seam of a calzone when the sauce leaks out. TMI?

 

That's a lot of fennel!

 

I love making these with the girls. They’ve been making their own since D2 was 2. I have pictures of her standing on a chair by the counter piling on the cheese in her New Year’s Eve hat. She’s ridiculously cute!

I had cracker dough rising last night too but lost interest so I put it in the fridge to slow down the rising until this morning. That’s what I burned myself on. I think they’re supper yummy. Sometimes the girls like cheese and crackers in their lunches (if they last until tomorrow) so if that works, expect that to be next week’s post.

Have a good rest of your Monday!

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