Happy New Year Calzones

The kids were asking for pizza for dinner; I offered to make calzones because it had been a while since I made them. Long enough that I forgot how long to bake them.

I used my bread maker to make the dough. Two pounds of dough is split into eight balls for eight calzones. 

I used 3 cups of white flour and 1 1/4 cups of whole wheat flour and got no complaints about it being too wheaty. 

The rest of the recipe is 1.5 cup of warm water, 2 Tb olive oil, 2 tsp salt, 2 tsp sugar, and 2 tsp yeast. 

For fillings we had frozen broccoli, frozen spinach, frozen peppers, pepperoni, tomato sauce, and mozzarella cheese. 

I used a fork and knife markings to distinguish the different fillings. 

We brushed them with an egg and a TB of water mix. 

They baked for 20 minutes at 400 degrees. 

Apple Muffins

Here's a recipe I made many years ago. Tried it again today with two three year olds and it came out pretty well.

1 egg 

1/2 cup applesauce

1TB oil

1/2-1/3 cup of brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup oats

1/4 cup flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1 medium apple of peeled, chopped 

1/2 cup raisins

1/4 cup cider

Bake 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes for mini muffins 

Kettle Corn at Home

I found an easy recipe to make Kettle Corn at home.  I made a few modifications and it tastes great!

I use 2 Tablespoons of coconut oil

1/4 cup of raw sugar

1/2 cup organic unpopped corn

Salt after popping

It yields at least 10 cups when the popping goes very well. I had one time on a different stove where I yielded less. 

Everyone loves this at my house and it goes quickly. I based the serving size on what we do, you could have less to make it a healthier snack. 

Chicken Marsala Casserole

Baked Chicken Marsala Casserole

I love Chicken Marsala in restaurants and wondered about making it at home.  My main reason for trying this out was to make it as a gift for my parents.  Then I would pack it up in individual meal packets for their freezer to be eaten whenever they needed a quick meal.  I found many recipes and loosely followed one.

Most of the Marsala casserole recipes used rice in them, but I wanted to serve it over pasta.  This recipe yielded not much "gravy" for a whole box of pasta.  Using less pasta is better, or saving some of the box for my picky eaters works too.

Also I ended up doubling the amount of Marsala wine and half and half and that seemed to work better.  Other modifications, I used only 8 oz of mushrooms.

My version:
boil pasta, use about 2/3s of 16 oz box or save some after boiling
 in a small casserole dish

Begin with olive oil and minced onions and minced garlic
add 8 oz of mushrooms, cook for 5-10 mins
add 2 TB of flour
add 1 cup of marsala wine, 1 cup of half and half, stirring constantly until thickened.
add 1 14.5oz can of chicken broth

Place pasta in small casserole dish,
add chopped chicken on top (2 cups is ideal),
add mushroom, gravy mixture on top

bake for 20 mins in 350 degree oven

This was very saucy and tasty.

Leftover pasta for the kiddies

Vegetable Crustless Quiche

Because of the holidays and busy grocery stores, we are left with not much food in the house.  But I had bought a bunch of eggs for baking and just to have around.

I found a recipe that had mainly what I had around the house.  My veggies were mainly frozen.

First I started with a 14.5 oz can of chicken broth and softened chopped potatoes, along with some minced garlic and minced onion in my big skillet.  Once they were mostly softened and most of the broth had cooked away, I added 1 cup of frozen red pepper, 1 cup of frozen chopped spinach, and 1 cup of  frozen chopped broccoli.  I also had a 4 oz can of mushrooms which I added at the end.  As they thawed, I worked on the egg part.

I used 9 eggs, beated until fluffy and added 1/2 cup of half and half (we are out of milk), a 15 oz container of low fat ricotta (recipe calls for cottage cheese), 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp of baking soda, 1/2 cup flour, a 1/4 cup of dried parsley, and 1.5 cups of a blend of shredded low fat Cheddar cheese and Colby Jack cheese.

A 3 quart container was lightly sprayed with cooking spray and then first the vegetables went in followed by the egg mixture.  I mixed it gently in the dish, then topped with the remaining 1.5 cups of shredded cheese.

Baked at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, then 35 minutes at 350 degrees, then I added quite bit more time because it was still runny in the middle. I think for this quantity, a bigger, shalower baking dish would have worked better.  Being in the 3 quart dish, it was very thick.

It doesn't taste very eggy, which is good because I don't really like eggs much.

Doll quilts

My girls received doll beds for Christmas and they came with boring light blue bedding. I offered to make doll sized quilts for the new beds. 

My younger daughter chose pink and purple and blue, but not green. She didn't have any other ideas, so I just tried things out. I started with a pink wonky star with 4" squares. Then I made a purple one. The two stars seemed to be enough.  I decided to add stripes in between and also on the sides. For the in between stripes, I sliced them into two pieces and inserted a white strip for something different. I like the pretty colors and the bright white. 

She also chose ladybug fabrics. I have two ladybug prints.  I suggested these would work well for the second bed in her bunk bed. We added red hearts and white. I snuck in a little blue and black also. I wanted to try wonky "flying geese."  I just started with a color and added a white strip on side and then another to form a triangle. I also made wonky log cabins (beginning with a 3" square) on the other side finishing with a strip of white. 

For my older daughter, I thought we might use leftover fabrics from her house quilt. But she requested that I match her bed quilt. Fortunately I was able to find all the fabric scraps and figured out the pattern again. I used a 4" square and 1.5" strips and a 1.5" mini square. I started with six blocks, then added another set, then added some more until I was up to twelve blocks. 

These small quilts were possibly even more fun to make than mug rugs. I also enjoyed planning out the quilting.  Beginning with the ladybug quilt, I tried triangles and lines around the flying geese. For the blocks, I did different things like zig zags, wavy lines, hearts, pebbles, and even drew a ladybug on the black.

The pink and purple star quilt was next. Starting in the center white strip, I made swirls and a few pebbles. Looking at each section and trying different patterns was neat. Knowing whatever I chose I wouldn't have to duplicate on a big quilt was liberating and allowed me to do more dense quilting. 

After getting my older daughter's input for her doll's quilt, I incorporated swirls, zig zags, and wavy lines as well as some details for the mini squares. It was really cool working on this mini quilt replicating her bed quilt as hers was really my first real quilt. It was so easy putting this one together and knowing the many steps instead of figuring it out as I went.  I had also just learned free motion quilting and only quilted some of the parts of her quilt with squiggles and butterfly outlines while others I just outlined the rectangles. 

Cherry turnovers

My son's German teacher invited kids to bring in something German for their holiday party. After considering different recipes, I decided to try making some pastries. I remember them being called Handtaschen or hand pies. They seem to also be called strudel or turnovers. 

I read through a few different recipes trying to find one that yielded a lot of turnovers.  I learned about handling phyllo dough and how it is brushed with butter and layered. Most recipes suggest cutting the big layers in half. Then some cut that in thirds. Different fillings can be used.  I had more canned cherries and followed the cherry pie filling recipe on the can.

I ended up cutting the half sheets into five sections to yield the most turnovers and be small. I used three layers of phyllo and because I folded the triangles the short way, there weren't too many layers. I wonder if my filling would have stayed in better during baking with more layers. 

Another thing I forgot between reading through recipes and actually making the turnovers was to make vents in the tops. Some recipes call for a couple slits cut into the top for venting. This may help keep everything in too. 

These mini turnovers each had about four cherries on the phyllo dough before folding them up. 

I brushed butter on top and sprinkled sugar. I wonder if an egg wash would have browned the tops more. These baked for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.