Pizza Roll

We eat homemade pizza about once every week or two. It's the only food I can think of that we eat so frequently, so even though we have our favorites, I like to switch things up a bit here and there.

Recently we tried a pizza roll (otherwise referred to as stromboli). You take an uncooked pizza. And roll it up. (And then you cook it of course.) I know; I know; you're still trying to wrap your brain around that earth shattering declaration, right? And I'm willing to bet that there are more than a few of you asking, "But why?" The biggest reason is because you were bored and this seemed fun. But there are a couple of practical reasons for making a pizza roll instead of a standard pizza.

1. You can make this with a homemade dough (as I did because I'm an overachiever and stuff and also because I have a breadmaker, which makes this a 2 minute task). But you don't have to. You can use frozen bread dough. You can use refrigerated biscuit or croissant dough. What I'm trying to say is that you can totally cheat. You can open up a can or two of croissant dough, flatten it a bit, slather some toppings on, roll it up, cook, and badabing, you've got dinner ready in 20 minutes. (See if your Dominoes guy can make it to your house that quick, eh?) But you don't have to cheat if you don't want to. This isn't a recipe that has to be made with refrigerated whatever or it will never be the same. 

2. I don't know why, but when something is rolled up like this, I don't feel bad giving it to my kids/husband cold in their lunches. It feels more like a pepperoni roll or something that just a sad little slice of cold pizza their neglectful mother packed up for them. What I'm trying to say is that warm this is a meal, but cold it becomes a snack food or a travel food. I like that about it. You can just eat the cool version like a sandwich in your hand.

3. You can dip these in marinara. What is it about dipping things that is so fun (especially for children)? I don't know, but the phenomena exists and I just roll with it. These are dip-able and my people like that.

Pepperoni Roll
adapted from What About Pie?
Makes 1 large pizza
Cost: $4.50
mozzarella: 3.00, dough: .50, pepperoni: 1.00

Step 1:
Make your favorite dough. Or pull it out of the freezer. Or bust open that can of refrigerated dough. Whatever. Just procure some dough, okay.

Step 2:
Flatten your dough into a rectangle, just like you're making cinnamon rolls.

Step 3: (this one can be skipped)
Add a very thin layer of pizza sauce. Too much sauce and it will ooze and sog. But just a thin layer will work. I did this, wanting to be sure that my kids ate at least a tiny bit of the fruit/veggie food group. However, you can totally skip the sauce if you want and just head straight for the cheese. Then after they're cooked you can dip in sauce if you like.

Step 4:
Add toppings. We did pepperoni and kept it simple at that.

Step 5:
Add cheese. We used mozzarella, but you can go all gourmet if you want.

Step 6:
Roll it. You're going to roll it so that it comes out long instead of short. Maybe you cheated your way through physics, but I know you can still do this, even though I did forget to take a picture. Seal the seam. Use a little water if you need to to get it to stick.

Step 7:
Put it on a lightly greased pan with the sealed seam down.

Step 8:
Bake at 375 for about 20 minutes or until the top of the dough is browned. This cooking time may vary depending on the type of dough you use, so keep your eye on it.

Step 9:
Let it cool for a few minutes. Then cut it with a nice sharp knife. If you try to cut it while hot with a dull knife, your cheese and stuff will just squish out the ends. So use a sharp knife and a gentle hand.

Step 10:
Eat. Dipping if desired.

Wacky Cake--photo update

Wacky cake is my most popular post on this blog ever. And for good reason. It's moist, delicious, chocolatey goodness. That you make in the pan. That's right--it is even better than a one bowl recipe. Also, it's intensely cheap (it came about during the depression where eggs, milk, and butter were harder to come by). And it takes just about the same amount of time to assemble as a boxed cake mix and is almost impossible to mess up.

People, it's just good (unless we're talking about health food, in which case it's bad).

But thus far, my pictures of it have just been so so (if that). Today I present a few pic's that are slightly better, although still imperfect. I've realized that the problem with wacky cake, pictures, and me is that people descend upon it like animals upon their prey and, just as in that lovely metaphor, there's often not a lot of pretty left to take advantage of when they're done. But that's okay--you should pin this anyway; you won't regret it.

And just for kicks, here's the previous picture I had of it:

Big Green Triple Chocolate Smoothie

The title--well, it kind of says it all. I think there are a few things in life you really can't go wrong with. Chocolate is one. Spinach is another. So when I got Fit Mama Real Food for my Secret Recipe Club blog this month, I didn't have trouble picking the recipe I wanted to make. So I made it. And made it. And made it. Uh-huh. It's delicious. And chocolate-y. And green. But not green like that plop of icky green cooked-from-a-frozen-block spinach that my mom used to plop on my plate when I was a kid. Oh no. Green like all that vitality being pumped into your body under a chocolate-y disguise. By which I mean that even though you can see the spinach, it does not have a strong taste in this smoothie (and there is a whole lot of it there, so that's saying something). I can't really taste it at all, but perhaps if you were highly attuned to the taste of all things green you would taste it just a bit.

This smoothie is especially nice as temperatures rise. When it gets hot, I find myself craving ice cream all the time. And there's nothing wrong with a little ice cream here and there. But 3 times a day might be pushing it. Drinks like this make me feel like I just ate a cold dessert even when I really just ate several cups of raw spinach, a banana, some dark chocolate, and milk.

This is extra easy to make, but here are a few tips for achieving smoothie perfection:

1. If you've got a lame blender like me, you're going to want to melt the chocolate into just a bit of the milk before you make this. Otherwise, you'll end up with a banana spinach smoothie that contains chunks of chocolate that get stuck in your straw. That hardly ranks on the world problems list (and you better believe I drank that first smoothie and enjoyed it), but I did like it better with the chocolate incorporated more. If you have time, melt the chocolate, and let it cool a bit, but even if you are in a hurry and throw it in warm, your smoothie will still turn out cold (just not quite as cold).

2. I've always got frozen bananas on hand because when my bananas get too spotty, I throw them in a bag in the freezer. All smoothie lovers (or banana bread lovers) should do this. However, if you forgot to freeze your bananas, cut them thin and put them in a single layer on a plate. Twenty minutes later they should be pretty frozen. 

3. I used regular milk for this, but am pretty confident it would work with many different types of milk if you wanted to vegan it. Tomorrow I plan to use a couple tablespoons of coconut milk in it just because I love the stuff and have some sitting around.

4. If you've only got, say, regular chocolate chips lying around, you could still use them. Just omit the maple syrup and use about 3 Tbps chocolate chips in place of the dark chocolate and unsweetened chocolate.

Big Green Triple Chocolate Smoothie
adapted from Fit Mama Real Food
Serves 2--makes 3-4 C
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cost: $1.50
banana: .15, spinach: .80, chocolate: .25, milk: .20, maple syrup: .10

1 banana, frozen in chunks
3-4 C spinach (I'm usually pretty generous with the spinach)
1 Tbsp dark chocolate (I used Ghiradelli 60% chips)
1 Tbsp cocoa
1/2 oz unsweetened chocolate
1 1/2 C milk
1 Tbsp maple syrup (I used the pure stuff)

Melt dark chocolate, cocoa, and unsweetened chocolate into 2 Tbsp of the milk. I do this in the microwave at 15-20 second intervals. Once melted or mostly melted, remove it and allow it to cool for a couple minutes.

While it cools, put the banana, spinach, and milk into your blender. Blend it. Then add the melted chocolate/milk combo and blend until it's smooth and brownish green (it is a surprisingly non-repulsive shade of brownish green, but brownish-green nevertheless).

At this point, you might want to taste your smoothie to see if you want the maple syrup. If you do, go for it.

Then drink it up my friends. It's surprisingly filling.

PRINTABLE RECIPE