Saturday, April 7, 2012

Calzones fit for a Cowboy

We made P-Dub's Cowboy Calzone (p. 114). We followed Ree's pizza crust recipe, which is the same crust we used for our Potato-Leek and Pesto Pizzas.

For the filling, we began by browning ground sausage and hamburger along with finely diced onion. To this, we added a can of RoTel tomatoes with chilies. This was removed from the heat and cooled to room temperature.



In the meantime, we combined an egg with mozzarella, ricotta and colby-jack cheeses. This was seasoned with salt and pepper.



The cheese and meat mixtures were combined. And, we may have drooled just a little bit.



Here's Lou.


Isn't she cute?

Next we divided our dough equally into eight balls. These were flattened and rolled until they were about six-inches in diameter.



We then placed a portion of the meat and cheese filling onto one-half of the dough circle. We then folded the other half of the dough over the mixture.



We sealed the calzone by pressing the fork tines along the open seam.



All the calzones were baked for approximately 15 minutes at 450-degrees.



These were very tasty. We also began to consider other filling options, such as ham and swiss cheese, or meatballs and marinara sauce. The possibilities are endless.

Happily full,

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Any Man's Favorite Sandwich

And these women, too.

Several weeks ago, we made Marlboro Man's Favorite Sandwich (p. 88). We weren't sure what to expect since we hadn't really had cube steak sandwiches before. And let us just say from the get-go, that...You. Must. Make. This.

We started by slicing onion and sauteing it with butter in our large skillet. This was set aside.



Next, we sliced three pounds of cube steak into small strips, cutting across the grain. This was seasoned with pepper, Lawry's seasoning salt and lemon pepper.



We added more butter to the pan, in true P-Dub style, and placed half of the meat in the skillet. We browned both sides evenly, repeating this process with the remaining half of our meat.



All of the meat and onion were returned to the skillet adding more of our fatty friend, butter. This was further seasoned with Worcestershire sauce and several good dashes of Tabasco.



We followed Ree's directions and let this simmer for about five minutes to reheat the meat and onion and to allow the sauces to thicken. It is at this point you should be able to serve these as sandwiches on toasted buns. We, however, were waiting for guests to arrive. In order to keep the dish warm, we stuck it in the oven at 250-degrees, for what ended up being about 45 minutes. Little did we know that we had opened Pandora's box of deliciousness for this dish by letting the meat continue to slowly cook. By the time we served it, the cube steak was so tender it practically fell apart. Some of our guests even topped their sandwiches with blue cheese crumbles. We served up the sandwich with Ree's Onion Strings and a blue cheese coleslaw.



We were satisfied. And this sandwich has been requested multiple times, since then, by our husbands.

Happily full,