Valentine's Day Spinach and Cheese Calzone



Spinach and Cheese Calzone

 When I think of a Valentine's Day dinner, I think of sharing.  Sharing time, sharing help, sharing friendship, sharing love.

Food is fun to share.  However, chateaubriand steak for two can be pricey.  That's why I thought of calzone.  Although the HBin5 group is making whole grain "Stuffed Sandwich Loaf" for our current assignment, the ABin5 Spinach and Cheese Calzone seemed just right for Valentine's Day.

I made a batch of olive oil dough the other day.  It would be great for pizza, calzone, and foccacia bread.  This dough is "good" for 12 days, and so there's a good chance that I'll make enough recipes with it.  This new square dough bucket really fits nicely in my fridge, too!

I sauteed more spinach than suggested.  One half cup of spinach did not seem like enough--a second batch of spinach was made. The filling was made first , then set aside.  Next time, I'd make the filling while the dough is resting.  The dough needed to rest several times because it kept stretching back while being rolled out.

One change that was made.  The rolled out piece of dough was much larger than my pizza peel.  I thought I'd risk putting the calzone together before transferring it to the peel (after taking a picture, just in case!).  Therefore, I loosened the dough on one half, put the filling on the other half of the dough, and manuevered the folded creation onto the pizza peel. This was a little tricky, but was accomplished with my dough scraper and moving extra flour under the calzone.

Once the calzone was moved to the peel, I adjusted it and cut 3 slits into the top.  It wasn't necessary to seal it, it seemed to seal itself.

I had forgotten to add the broiler pan for the water--it's been awhile since I baked with steam.  Therefore, I spritzed water every few minutes for the first 10 minutes.  That seemed to work just fine.  The calzone baked to a lovely golden brown color, and was firm.  It was easy to slide it onto a baking sheet, covered with a towel to absorb heat.




Cooling on a Towel



Great with salad and Green Beans!
















We both enjoyed the calzone.  However, my hubby confided in me that next time, he wants to try marinara sauce with his calzone.  He just didn't want to hurt my feelings.  Actually, he has a great sense of what would make a dish better.  We had a lemon chicken recipe last week that was so-so.  He suggested green olives, and it was fabulous!  Therefore, we will try marinara sauce on the second half of the calzone.

Here's a romantic baking comic that my hubby gave me the other day.  He reads the comics daily.   We have "Love is..." comics pasted up all over the house.  This was pretty special, since I love to bake!  I thought my co-bakers would enjoy it.

For me, the secret ingredient is the excitement of knowing how much my creation will make people happy--especially my hubby.

Happy Valentine's Day!  Did you do anything special for Valentine's Day?  I hope you will leave your comment about that below.

Pear Tarte Tatin, Apple Strudel Bread and Cranberry Pecan Sweet Rolls

For this braid, our baking group was able to pick between 2 doughs--whole wheat brioche, and pumpkin pie brioche.  Since we made pumpkin pie brioche before, I tried the whole wheat brioche.  What a wonderful dough--so nice and silky!  A joy to use, and didn't have a strong whole wheat taste.

This dough was made in my Kitchenaid mixer.  The liquid ingredients were placed in the bowl first.  The yeast, salt and vital wheat gluten were then sifted into some of the flour with my new battery operated sifter*** (see Handwise tips).  Jeff and Zoe posted to me that it would be ok to sift these ingredients with part of the flour. That should keep the vital wheat gluten from getting gummy.  They said to just be sure to mix everything well afterwards.

 Pear Tarte Tatin

This recipe was made with my dinner guests in mind, who love ginger and cardamom.  My hubby experienced too much ginger in one of my recipes, and now won't touch it.  Bosc pears were used, one of my favorite fall fruits!

The dough was made the night before, so it was time to make cook the pears.  Peeling the pears with my Dazey Stripper didn't work.

Will someone start making these again???

That was unusual.  This gadget is great for peeling apples or potatoes.  Now I only see the peeler (without the necessary blades!) on ebay.  The pears just seemed a bit too soft. 


So, the pears were peeled, cored, and sliced with my trusty paring knife.  We don't have a cast iron pan, so the pears were sauteed in our 11" Kitchenaid pan. 

The dough was rolled out to about 12".  To make the transfer easier, a pie-making trick was used.  I folded the dough in half, then in half again.  The corner of the dough was placed onto the center of the pan.  It was then simple to unfold the dough onto the pears.  


Because I was using a larger pan, I made really sure to tuck the dough underneath the pears:   

After baking it for about 20 minutes, the pear tarte tatin looked like this:



Five minutes later, I placed a serving tray on top and flipped (in what a guest called "an act of faith) the tarte onto the serving tray.

The pears needed a bit of readjustment, but it was just great that the tarte came out in one piece onto the platter!!!

Apple Strudel Bread

Yummy, yummy, yummy!  This bread is one of my definite favorites.  Instead of making doughnuts, I thought I would make this bread again.  However, this bread was made after an eventful day of cooking and entertaining guests.  Baking that day was my therapy, and I wasn't up for challenges.  Although the taste was fabulous, you'll see that it wasn't the "desired" shape.

Two pounds of dough were rolled out.  The filling of apples, cinnamon, raw sugar and walnuts was added.  There was my note on the recipe, from last time, to decrease the amount of raisins and walnuts--which I did.  

However, I couldn't tell whether my note about the apples was to use 2 or 3 medium apples.  Therefore, I decided to use one medium and one large apple.  That may have been my downfall in this recipe....

Before rising!

After rolling the dough into a long log, it was really too big to place into my prepared 8 1/2" x  4 1/2" loaf pan.  I was just too tired to dig up a larger loaf pan, spray it with oil and wash my current pan.  That's when I decided to fold the log in half and put it into the current loaf pan:  

There were holes in the dough, after the transfer.  They were patched with dough scraps, just as if it were a pie.  Halfway through the baking, I checked on the progress:   

  

Uh Oh!!!!

The long log should have been baked on a baking sheet.  Not only did the loaf bake over the sides, the dough scraps were falling off  (they were yummy!).  Thankfully, I put a piece of foil underneath the loaf pan.  At least I was alert enough to think of that....

Top of Apple Strudel Bread

Bottom of Apple Strudel Bread

As mentioned before, the final loaf wasn't pretty, but it was really tasty.  I ate this quickly, and I'm not sure my hubby got to taste it!  YUM!!!

  Cranberry Pecan Sweet Rolls

The last assignment for this braid was the Honey Caramel Sticky Buns.  I had made this before, and have vivid memories of the oven fire--Honey Caramel Sticky Buns and a "kitchen adventure."


Therefore, I decided to make simple sweet rolls.  Craisins sounded good.  The dough was rolled out, and the craisins were sprinkled onto the rectangle of dough.  When the dough was almost rolled up into a log, I thought "what about some sugar?"  So the dough was unrolled slightly, and some sugar was sprinkled onto the rectangle.

"Baking by Inspiration"

The log was cut into 2" slices which were placed on their sides.  There were some chopped pecans in the cabinet, so those were sprinkled on top.  After the baked rolls were cooled, a simple icing was drizzled on top:

These were shared with our happy crew of gardeners, our great neighbor (across the street), and my yoga teacher.  My hubby snacked on these also.  Well, at least he ate one out of the three recipes!

Handwise tips:  If you have hand pain, tendonitis, or arthritis or any other pain issues and want to make this recipe:  

• The Handwise tip for this recipe comes from our HBin5 host--Michelle, of Big Black Dogs.  There seem to be 2 kinds of sifters, usually.  One is the squeeze handle, which can be very tiring on hands.  The other is a turn handle, which can also be tiring.  Michelle told me about her Norpro battery operated sifter:       

Battery Operated Sifter

At first glance, it was dissappointing that the sifter could only hold 4 cups.  However, it's just wonderful that it does all the sifting by itself--no handles to squeeze or turn. 

I will mention two aspects about this sifter:

1. Make sure you put the handle in place properly, or it won't work well.  The flour will sift slowly.
2. This may not be a good sifter if your hands are sensitive to vibration.  However, the sifting only lasts a short time.

This bread is one of the breads from the "Healthy Breads in 5 Minutes a Day" book.The HBinFive Baking Group, started by Michelle of Big Black Dogs, is baking through all of the breads in this book.  To see what my HB5 baking buddies have made recently, check out The 20th HBinfive Bread Braid

Thanks for stopping by to visit! Come back soon, I'll be baking again often. I hope you will leave a comment below. I read every comment, and really appreciate your feedback. 

Judy

Baking Swedish and Norwegian Breads

Judy & Kitty Making Norwegian Jukelage, waving Norway's flag

This baking adventure started out with my baking Swedish Limpa Bread from AB5.  The combination of orange zest, cardomom, anise and rye seemed interesting.  Therefore, I postponed my group's HB5 asssignment for this week.  These breads just couldn't wait to be baked!

While freshly grinding the anise seeds and cardomom pods, from the health food store, the house smelled wonderful!  The dough went into the fridge overnight, to make it easier to handle when shaping. 

Just before the loaf went into the oven, a cornstarch glaze was applied.  A sharp knife was used to cut a scallop pattern into the dough.  More cardamom, anise, and sugar was sprinkled on top.  Here's a picture of the bread, just before it went into the oven.


While eating the loaf for dinner, my husband learned he didn't like the flavors of anise and cardomom.  Well, you can always learn something new about your spouse!

That's when I thought about my friend, Kitty.  I love to talk to people about baking, and about all the baking styles of different countries.  When Kitty and I talked about baking, she mentioned her favorite Norwegian bread--julekage (pronounced yooleekaka).   

Kitty has been extremely busy in her job, and hasn't baked in awhile.  Since the AB5 way of baking might help her, I invited Kitty to bake julekage at my house.  She was excited to see how she could bake the AB5 method.  Julekage is actually a variation of challah, which is in the AB5 book.  We just added raisins (Kitty's choice), cardomom, and anise.

Here's a picture of Kitty, mixing up a batch of dough from the AB5 book.  She enjoyed using my Danish dough whisk.

Two hours later, the dough was ready to be shaped.  Look at that beautiful rise!!!  And the smell of even the dough was wonderful.
That's the flag of Norway on the top of this "dough mountain."

Kitty said that her family makes 3-strand loaves which are sliced.  They are eaten as part of breakfast or dessert.  Kitty learned this shape from her mom, who learned it from her dad's mom.   Kitty said that different families might shape their jukelege differently.  They also make rolls, which are easy to pack for a snack.

Here's a picture of the rolls, fresh from the oven.  We had measured out 3 ounces of dough for each roll.  

The rolls, after icing them with Kitty's special icing recipe. 

Kitty's Danish Almond Icing
1 cup powdered sugar
2 TBSP water
1 tsp vegetable oil
1/2 tsp almond extract

Mix all the ingredients together.  Add water until it becomes thin enough to drizzle.  Makes 1/2 cup

After drizzling the icing on the jukelage as it cooled, we put almond slivers on the top of the icing as the cooled.

 

The finished, braided loaves. 

Kitty asked her mom how to store the loaves so that the icing wouldn't come off.  Kitty's mom said that people usually eat them up right away--no leftovers!  But she said to store them in a paper bag overnight and then put the paper bags in the freezer bag to freeze them.  That way, the icing shouldn't rub off.

Kitty was thrilled to take home some of the remaining dough to make rolls later in the week.  And we enjoyed some wonderful Norwegian treats!

More Swedish Limpa Bread:

Swedish Limpa Bread

There was still some leftover Swedish Limpa bread dough, so we made another loaf.  It was fun making patterns in this loaf.

For the last pound of limpa bread dough, we decided to make muffins.  Following Kitty's julekage idea, muffins would be packable for a snack.  Here's Kitty, putting a mixture of cardomom, anise, and sugar on top.




The muffins baked up really well.  They only took about 20 minutes to bake.

The spices of cardamom and anise in these breads were fascinating to me.  I have used cardamom in Indian cooking.  How did it get to Sweden?  

Wikipedia gave me an answer.  It just had to do with the ancient spice routes!  The first Dutch expedition left from Amsterdam (April 1595) for South East Asia^. Another Dutch convoy sailed in 1598 and returned one year later with 600, 000 pounds of spices and other East Indian products.  ^{How cardamom got to Scandinavia from India}

So it was the Dutch who first brought these spices to countries like Sweden, Norway and Holland.

When Kitty came over to bake julekage, she said that her great grandparents owned a shipping company.  They would travel to India and all over the world, bringing spices back to Norway.  Wow, that really brought history to life for me!

Well, we had an absolute blast baking together!  All my husband heard was the two of us laughing and singing ("Let's do the gluten wrap, again!...").  Also, the house smelled wonderful.  While the muffins were baking, Kitty went to feed out koi fish in our pond.  When she returned to the kitchen, she said she was just in love with the wonderful aroma.  It reminded Kitt of Christmas baking from her childhood.  What a wonderful memory!


We hope you have fun baking these breads.  For some helpful Handwise tips, click on this link:  Helpful Handwise tips, near the middle of the page

This bread is one of the breads from the "Artisan Breads in 5 Minutes a Day" book.

The HBinFive Baking Group, started by Michelle of Big Black Dogs, is baking through all of the breads in the "Healthy Breads in 5 Minutes a Day" book.  To see what my HB5 baking buddies have made recently, check out The 19th HBin5 Bread Braid

Thanks for stopping by to visit!  Come back soon, I'll be baking again often.  I hope you will leave a comment below.

Judy

Rosemary Flax Baguette

Rosemary Flax Baguette

The whole wheat dough for these baguettes was really easy to use.  It was much stiffer than the dough using all purpose flour, making the shaping much easier.  I baked these baguettes twice, using  stored dough.  

The first time, they were baked on my baguette pan.  Parchment paper was used so the dough wouldn't seep through or stick:

Halfway through baking time, I took the baguettes off the baking pan and put them directly onto the stone that was in the oven.  This gave the bottom of the baguettes a nice crust:

Energy saving tip:  Instead of heating up the oven twice for baking, I baked my blueberry pie first.  Then I heated up the oven higher for the baguettes.  It takes a half hour to heat up the oven, but it the oven was pretty hot by the time I baked the baguettes:

Nice crumb, crust on the baguettes.  Great whole wheat and rosemary flavor!

There was just enough dough for a second baguette, later in the week.  It's great to have stored dough in the fridge--no need to mix up another batch of dough.  This time, I did a "freehand" shape:

It looks like the baguette pan makes smaller loaves.  The loaf on the left is the freehand loaf.  The one on the right was baked in the baguette pan.

The baguettes were especially enjoyable when we dipped them into olive oil!

This bread is one of the breads from the "Healthy Breads in 5 Minutes a Day" book.

The HBinFive Baking Group, started by Michelle of Big Black Dogs, is baking through all of the breads in this book.  To see what my HB5 baking buddies have made recently, check out The 17th HBin5 Bread Braid

Thanks for stopping by to visit!  Come back soon, I'll be baking again often.  I hope you will leave a comment below.

Judy

Vollkornbrot: 100% Whole Grain Bread, and My Favorite Gazpacho

Vollkornbrot: 100% Whole Grain Bread, and My Favorite Gazpacho

Hearty bread lovers, this is one for us!!!

Honestly, I wasn't sure I would like this bread.  It sounded too dense--rye flakes, whole wheat flour, wheat berries.  All purpose flour wasn't used, and the dough wasn't enriched with eggs or milk.


Wow, this bread is wonderful!  As soon as I bit into my first bite, I said "where is the deli mustard!?"  This bread can really stand up to hearty sandwiches. 


The wheat berries and rye flakes came from my local health food store.  The dough seemed wetter than usual.  However, the recipe didn't say to presoak the wheat berries.  After 24 hours, the wheat berries had soaked up much of the excess moisture.  


I rolled out the dough into a rectangle.  My favorite 4 sided folding method gives the breads a nice rectangle shape.  For more information, check out my prior post: Folding technique for a rectangular loaf
The instructions are in the middle of the page.

After placing the dough in the loaf pan, I covered it with a shower cap to rise.  Shower caps work wonderfully.  It's fun to repurpose household items; it saves me from using plastic wrap.  

We really enjoyed the finished bread with a chicken cacciatore dinner.

The leftover bread made wonderfully hearty croutons when mixed with olive oil, garlic powder, onion powder and Italian seasoning.   They were baked in a 450 degree oven, just after I took something else out of the oven--energy saving!


The croutons seemed just perfect for a cold summer soup.  To me, nothing screams "summer" to me like gazpacho or ratatouille. So, this month, I decided to make my favorite gazpacho recipe.  Here's my favorite low calorie recipe, which is delicious!.

Gazpacho (Chilled Salad Soup)
Adapted from Weight Watchers
(Makes 4 servings)

1 cup tomato juice**** (see substitutions below)
1 packet or tsp instant beef broth and seasoning mix
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1 medium cucumber, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup diced celery
1/2 cup diced green bell pepper
1/4  cup diced onion
1 TBSP olive oil
2 tsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp lemon juice 
3-4 garlic cloves (less, if you don't like garlic)
1/4 tsp salt
dash pepper
2 drops hot sauce (I use 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper)

Combine tomato juice and broth mix in a small saucepan and bring to a boil.  Remove from heat and let cool.  Combine remaining ingredients in work bowl of a food processor.  Process until
vegetables are finely chopped.  Add cooled tomato mixture;
process just until combined.  Refrigerate at least 2 hours, preferably
overnight, before serving.


*** can substitute 1/2cup tomato sauce & 1/2cup water or 1 cup water, several TBSP tomato paste, salt and pepper. Whatever you have on hand.
 

About the HBinFive Baking Group
The HBinFive Baking Group, started by Michelle of Big Black Dogs, is baking through all of the breads in the Healthy Bread in Five Minutes book. To see what my HB5 baking buddies have made recently, check out The 17th HBin5 Bread Braid

Thanks for stopping by to visit!  Come back soon, I'll be baking again often.  I hope you will leave a comment below.

Judy

Pistachio Twist Bread

Pistachio Twist Bread
For the 16th HBinFive Bread Braid

YUM!  This bread was one of the first assignments for the newly formed "Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day" baking group.  It was made with the "braided challah with whole wheat and wheat germ" dough.  I left out the wheat germ, and added flour to make the right consistency.  Rose water flavored the pistachio filling wonderfully.  

We took the bread to a holiday party, and people couldn't stop nibbling it!

For months, I have been craving this bread.  A friend of mine went to Trader Joe's in another city and brought me back bags of shelled pistachios.  I knew just what I was going to do with them!!!

Half a recipe, which is 2 breads, seemed like a good idea.  One for us, and one for a friend.  I usually space out my baking, so one night I put all the dry ingredients (minus the yeast) into my dough bucket. 

The next morning, I added the yeast, and the liquid ingredients.  Why does the dough look so watery?  

I began adding flour to the mixture, trading off between white whole wheat and unbleached all purpose.  Finally, I figured it out (you probably figured it out, too!)--I had added enough water for a full batch.  I added the remaining ingredients to make full batch, and added enough flours to make the dough feel "right."  So I can't tell you the proportion of white whole wheat flour to all purpose that was used in the bread.  But it did come out lighter in color; probably more all purpose was used this time.

Making the filling

The filling was easy to make.  I started by weighing 5oz. of pistachios.  Just enough to make  1/2 Cup of ground pistachios.  Weighing ingredients makes the job go much faster!

Recently, I was able to buy orange water.  That was the first choice in the recipe).  I was curious how it would taste, compared to the rosewater I used last time.

After adding the orange water, the mixture became a thick paste.

Rolling out the dough.  Placing globs of filling on the dough makes it easier to spread out a thick filling.  Can you see a picture in the blobs?

The dough is then rolled into a log, and twisted into a spiral.

Here's 2 twists, put aside to rise.  Notice that I put timers on each of them.  Love that dollar store--I picked up timers that I can use on differently-timed baking projects.  The microwave timer tells me when to turn on the oven!

The finished loaf.  But it's stuck to the pan, and felt flimsy.  I set a timer for 5 minutes to let the loaf firm up.  

Then, using my bench knife, 

I loosened the loaf on all sides.

Instead of lifting the loaf, I lifted the Silpat by the diagonal corners to transfer it to the cooling rack.  After all that work, I wasn't going to risk a loaf falling apart!  From the cooling rack, it was easy to slip out the Silpat.   

Ta da!  The loaves are now cooling on the racks.  With the rest of the dough, I made hot dog buns.

What a great day of baking! 

Handwise/Time Saving tips:  If you have hand pain, tendonitis, or arthritis or any other pain issues and want to make this recipe, you might space it out over a few days:

Make the HB5 stored dough several days before you plan to bake.  Make the filling on a different day, so you can concentrate on making the filling and cleanup of food processor on that day. 

When you are mixing the dough--If your hand problems respond to warmth, mixing with your hands may be a wonderful option.  The water you add is about 100 degrees, and it's a very wet dough.  It's pretty easy to mix, and no kneading.  I always love to put my hand into the warm dough to mix it!  You can get a better idea of when the dough is "just right," too!  That was especially important this time, when I added too much water.

Let the dough rest if it resists stretching out.  Wait 10-15 minutes after doing the gluten cloak, and it easily should be able to be patted into a larger circle or rolled out.  Good time to have a seat and rest your hands!

Find what kind of rolling method works best for you.  You might pick up the dough and have gravity stretch it for you.  You might use an OXO-type rolling pin.  Or a pastry roller may be easier for you to use, with the angle of the roller coming from above.  I think the pastry roller is the easiest to use. 





You don't have to bake several items on the same day.  However, the hot dog buns form pretty fast and cook quickly.  It's nice to do it all while the oven it hot!

Soak your tools in your empty dough bucket or a pan when you are finished using them.  Soak your baking pan with soapy water after you remove the bread.  That way, you can wash them easily later (or tomorrow!)  Give yourself the permission of time to clean up much later.
______


Thanks for stopping by to visit!  I hope you will leave a comment below.  Maybe you can add a handwise or time saving suggestion that will help others?

About the HBinFive Baking Group
The HBinFive Baking Group, started by Michelle of Big Black Dogs, is baking through all of the breads in the Healthy Bread in Five Minutes book. To see what my HB5 baking buddies have made recently, check out 16th HB5 Bread Braid.