spinach & feta stromboli

I've posted about stromboli before and you can find that post here. However, I've been thinking about switching it up lately... AJ and I recently tried Domino's spinach and feta cheesy bread and it was amazing... so yummy. That served as my inspiration :)

I used store-bought pizza dough again, but this time I added about half a cup of tomato sauce as the bottom layer.

And then I added 3 or 4 cups of Spinach:

And then some feta and mozzarella:

YUMMMMM!

Then, I wrapped it up. I actually had a few issues doing this... the spinach was so fluffy that it was hard to get the dough all together without it tearing. The places that did tear, I just grabbed dough from the end and tried to patch it up. I also had to put some toothpicks in to secure it and keep it closed. YIKES :)

Seriously though... the appearance doesn't matter that much. Taste will make people love you :)

If you look closely at the top left, you can see a naught spinach peeking out. Bad spinach!

I sprinkled olive oil and oregano/basil on top and baked at 375 for 20-25 minutes (crust is golden brown and fluffy).

Verdict: so delicious. Can't wait to make again. 

Ingredients:

• one can of pizza dough (I used Pillsbury)
• four cups of fresh spinach (you could also probably use frozen chopped, which is a lot cheaper! I'm going to try that next time.)
• 1/2 cup feta cheese
• 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese (eyeball it.)
• one small can tomato sauce (I think they're like eight oz?)
• garlic oil & oregano for garnish (this is optional)

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 375.
• Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray or line with foil.
• Pop (my fave. part) the pizza dough and spread it out. Be careful not to have any holes.
• Spread the tomato sauce in the middle of the dough. 
• Top with spinach and then the cheese mixture.
• Do your best to close it ;)
• Sprinkle with oil and spices if desired and bake for 20-25 minutes in a 375 degree oven.
• Enjoy.

Panettone French Toast

World Market is probably my favorite store, next to Trader Joe's of course. I find so many wonderful things there... most recently, panettone.

I follow Giada de Laurentiis on twitter and she suggested the other day using panettone for french toast. Well, first off.. I've never even had panettone... but she made it sound AMAZING.

At World Market, they had a really big box of it and then a smaller (I think 3 ounce) box. I got the smaller version, and it turned out to be just right for AJ and I. I had to wait to use it until we both had a morning off, which turned out to be Sunday.

I found several recipes for panettone french toast, but I didn't have everything needed for any of them. Therefore, I kind of made up my own.

Here's the bread cut up into pieces. It cut into five pieces but the top slice was curved, so I ate it. WHY has no one told me about panettone before? Or made me eat it? IT IS SO GOOD.

You have to mix some eggs, milk, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt together to form the 'dip' for the bread before you put it in the hot griddle.

 before & after... sorry if raw eggs make you queasy.

Then you dip the bread on both sides and then put it in the griddle!

They need to cook for 4-5 minutes on each side... so while I was waiting, I made Giada's cinnamon sugar syrup to go on top. And I also made scrambled eggs with my gingerbread spatula: Judge not.

Recipe:

• 1 small panettone (cut into 4 or 5 slices)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
• pinch of salt

1. In a broad bowl (you'll need to dip), mix the eggs, milk, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt together. Make sure it's really mixed up! 
2. Dip each piece of bread (mine were about 1/2-3/4 of an inch thick each) into the mixture. Make sure both sides are covered and then put it on a griddle pan over medium-high heat.
3. Cook for 4-5 minutes on each side and then eat! It is sweet enough that it doesn't need syrup, but the syrup is yummy!

pizza pizza!

I love homemade pizza! Growing up, we had pizza (either homemade or frozen) every Sunday night after church. AJ and I have tried to continue that tradition, but we have not been successful yet! We'll keep trying :)

Anyway, we made homemade pizza this past weekend because I found some inspiration in the grocery store... my mama used to use this sauce on her pizzas and I haven't seen it in a while. I was EXCITED.

I cheated again by using refrigerated dough. This particular dough (Pillsbury thin crust) had to be pre-baked alone... and then the sauce, cheese, and toppings get baked as well. YUM.

Then I sprinkled oregano, basil on top and baked for about 10 minutes. Delicious.

Did we eat half of the pizza in about 10 minutes? Yes. Yes, we did.

feel good food :)

Tonight for dinner, I fell back on an old favorite: sausage with peppers and onions.

When I go to a fair, all I want is a sausage sandwich (and maybe deep fried oreos). They are so good! Actually... there's a lot of food I want when we go to fairs! :)

They are SO easy to make: saute the sausage in one pan and saute some peppers and onions in another. Heat up the oven and get the hoagie rolls browned and toasty!

Brown the sausages over medium-high heat for about five minutes (just until there's some color). Then, add about half a cup of water and simmer for about ten minutes (temperature should be somewhere in that 160-170 degree range)

While you're cooking the sausage, throw some peppers and onions in another pan and get them cooking... they just need to soften up and caramelize, so it shouldn't take too long.

Put it all together on your toasted roll and you're finished!We ate ours with curly fries and broccoli on the side :) Yum!

alfredo!

Spaghetti squash is changing my life. I love having no guilt eating 'pasta' and I love that I can make everything that has regular pasta in it with this magic vegetable. And it tastes GOOD.

We've had our spaghetti now with parmesan & butter, red sauce, and in lasagna. All wonderful. Time to bring out the big guns... Can we do alfredo?

I baked some frozen chicken breasts in the oven (350 degrees for one hour with foil covering: perfect every time). I made a quick alfredo sauce with garlic, parmesan cheese, heavy cream, and butter on the stovetop. And I cooked the spaghetti squash in the microwave like I did last time, cut in half with some water inside. 

After everything was cooked, I spread some of the 'spaghetti' into the bottom of a baking dish and then placed some of the diced chicken on top. I poured half of the alfredo on top and then repeated layers. On top of it all, I sprinkled some more parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, and fresh parsley. (Side note: Why do the grocery stores sell parsley in such HUGE quantities... who needs that much parsley?)

I baked it for an hour in our 350 degree oven. AJ had two servings... and I think he wanted three, but the promise of sweet potato pie calmed him down ;)

Seriously... so yummy. Try it :)  Yummm!

spaghetti lasagna: not too much of a good thing.

Today was a great day.

1. I got a lot of work done at school.
2. I caught up with a good friend and her precious baby boy.
3. I experienced a coconut steamer for the first time.

Thank you, Lydia, for the reco (haha). YUM. So delish!

Today, I did not figure out what to do with the leftover candy chicken, but tomorrow is another day ;)

For dinner tonight, we had 'spaghetti' lasagna. Weird name. I know. I came up with it. Basically it's just spaghetti squash used in place of the usual lasagna noodles. SO GOOD. I used this recipe as a jumping off point, but changed it up quite a bit.

Are you getting excited yet?

Last time we had spaghetti squash, I boiled it whole in a big pot of water. That resulted in me almost getting severe burns because the water went LOCO.

This time, I sliced it in half lengthwise, got all the gunk out of the middle, put one half in an oval baker, put 1/2 cup of water in the squash, and then put the other half on top. Microwave for 10 minutes and voila! Perfect. No burns.

While that was cooking, I sauteed some ground beef, onions, garlic, and peppers. Smelled amazing. When the squash and beef were finished, AJ texted me and said he'd be late. So I waited...

just waiting to be something delicious...

We waited... and waited. Finally, he texted to say he was on his way home so I started 'assembly' aka layering: sauce, 'noodles', meat, cheese and so on. I also threw in some salami and pepperoni pieces because they were left over from the stromboli.

Then, I baked it at 325 for about 30 minutes. And this is the result, folks:

Here's some close-ups:

Let me just tell you: after candy chicken, I'm almost expecting disastrous results with every opening of the oven. This did not disappoint. It is SO yummy that I'm glad I made a whole casserole. We'll have spaghetti lasagna for work tomorrow and for dinner on Thursday. And I am HAPPY about that. 

The best part is: it's a pretty healthy meal: lots of veggies and some ground beef. Try it. You'll love!

pretending to be Italian.

I like to pretend to be Italian. It's no secret that I'm obsessed with Italy. I ask my husband quite often when I can take him to Italy (he's never been!).

People often assume I'm Italian because our last name is Italian. For example, there's a bus driver I see almost every day who tries to speak Italian to me. I speak Spanish back. He doesn't seem to notice. Anyways, I'm not Italian. Not even one drop, that I know of. My husband's not even biologically Italian. Although he actually looks like he is. Me? Nope. Not even a bit.

Oh well. Anyways, my Mama makes a mean stromboli. Her stromboli (which I feel coincided often with snow days, but maybe I'm wrong) is delicious. My Mama can cook. And she does it effortlessly. She cooked for us (SIX KIDS, PEOPLE) without batting an eye. And there are many things that will always belong to Mama, and will never be my recipes: stromboli. Swedish  meatballs. Swedish rye bread. Homemade pizza... I could go on and on. She's amazing.

Back to pretending to be Italian, I asked Mama for her stromboli recipe. She emailed it to me promptly but I let it sit in my email for a few weeks... It was a little intimidating. AJ really loves Mama's stromboli and I didn't want to make it only to pale in comparison.

So last night, I decided to make it. Problem is: Mama's recipe calls for homemade dough, which obviously entails time to let rise and rest. I didn't have time to wait. Have I mentioned I'm impatient? In Florida (where we go to visit AJ's family), they have Publix. I love Publix. At Publix, they sell balls of pizza dough already made and ready to roll. I wanted one of those so I didn't have to wait for yummy dough to rise. Well- we don't have Publix and I've never seen pizza dough pre-made up here in VA (so far! I'm holding out hope!). I was asking a co-worker if she had ever seen pre-made pizza dough in a grocery store and she suggested using the pizza dough that Pillsbury sells in a can (like the cinnamon rolls). GENIUS.

I stopped at our local grocery store on the way home and picked up a can of dough (sounds funny) and the rest of the ingredients I needed. I got home and opened the dough. I spread it out on a foil-covered baking pan. It was so easy. Mama-I hope you start doing this when you don't have time to make dough and let it rise. I also started to saute the peppers and onions to get them nice and browned.

Then, I started layering everything. I laid the ham, salami, and pepperoni before adding the cheese. Then, I finished it off by adding the veggies.

Can you say yumm-o! Then, all I had to do was close it by folding the sides and the ends in.

You don't have to even make sure it looks nice because people will forgive you once they taste it.

I then drizzled some garlic oil and oregano on top. Mama never did this growing up but it added a different taste to the crust... so good!

Then, I just tossed it in the oven  (375 degrees) for 20 minutes. When it came out of the oven, I thought AJ was going to start crying. He was so pleased with me ;)

Here it is sliced and gooey!

Here's our secret family recipe :) It's not very specific with amounts, so add to your taste :) For one stromboli, I got 1/4 pound of the ham, salami, and pepperoni each at the deli counter. I didn't use all of it but it was a good amount. Can you even get 1/5 of a pound at the deli counter? I'm thinking like a teacher; I wonder if the deli worker would know the equivalent decimal? Interesting thought. ANYWAYS- back to stromboli :) Here are the fillings:

• boiled or baked ham (I cheated here too by just buying honey ham at the deli counter)
• salami
• pepperoni
• mozzarella cheese
• provolone cheese
• sauteed peppers and onions
• mushrooms

If you want the recipe for the dough, let me know but I didn't put it on here because I used pizza dough.


Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

good intentions.

When we had spaghetti squash the other night for dinner, AJ mentioned that he wanted to try it with red sauce.

So we did last night :) I reheated the 'spaghetti' and simmered some marinara sauce on the stove. I wanted something else to go with it, so I decided to make meatballs. AJ and I both really like this recipe. I like it (obviously) for the taste, but I also like that it's called Meatball Nirvana. Can't go wrong! Here's  the spices that the recipe calls for... 

The first time I made these meatballs, I was a little nervous about using hot sauce as an ingredient. They are really good if you follow the recipe exactly, but I have since used a smaller amount of hot sauce. Personal preference :)

Making meatballs really grosses me out. Really grosses me out. I love the end result, but the process.... ew. Because of this, I didn't take too many pictures.

Anyways, besides the gross factor, meatballs are very easy. You mix everything together and then bake. Awesome!  Here's the end results:

and added to the 'spaghetti' and sauce: Yum!

The title of this post is very appropriate. I was well on my way to finishing up making (A HEALTHY!) dinner when AJ got home from work... Apparently, a restaurant dropped by his work and dropped these little beauties off:

Who can resist cheese fries? No human. Definitely not me.

Let it be said that I did have good intentions... that were foiled.

Tonight, I made one of my mom's famous recipes: stromboli! AJ was thrilled, as it's one of his faves. I'll post about it tomorrow :)