Any recipe that involves making you own yeast dough will be time consuming. This recipe is based on the recipe from The Vegan Chef - Whole Wheat Calzone Dough. We don’t have a bread machine or a food processor, but we do have a tabletop mixer, so we used that to mix the dough. You can do it by hand, you’ll just probably have to knead 3x as long.

Whole Wheat Calzones

1 1/3 cups warm water (110 degrees)
3 T. olive oil
1 - 1/4 oz. pkg. active dry yeast
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 TB honey
olive oil

1. Place warm water, olive oil & yeast in bowl of tabletop mixer with bread hook attached. Mix for 30 seconds.

2. Allow mixture to sit for 10 minutes or until lightly foamy.

3. Add the flour & salt. Mix for 1 minute or until the dough forms a ball.

4. Preheat oven to 200 degrees. (NOTE: On a warm day you can place your dough in a sunny spot and save the oven for baking time, but we made ours at night.) If you are wearing rings or bracelets, remove them now. You’re about to knead…

5. Transfer the dough to a floured work surface (with about 1/4c flour on it) and knead the dough for 3 minutes or until smooth and elastic.

6. Drizzle with honey. Knead for another 3 minutes.

7. Lightly oil a large, oven-safe bowl with a little olive oil (We used a Pyrex Mixing Bowl. Make sure it is large because your dough will double in size). Place the ball of dough in the bowl, and roll the dough around the inside of the bowl to thoroughly coat it with oil.

8. Cover the bowl with a clean, wet towel, and place in your preheated oven. Leave the dough to rise for 1 hour or until doubled in bulk. (NOTE, again: On a warm day you can place your dough in a sunny spot and save the oven for baking time, but we made ours at night.)

9. In the meantime prepare your filling. We used the veggies we had in the house and low-moisture, part-skim mozzerella cheese. I combined mushrooms and fresh spinach and sauteed in butter with a garlic. Once the spinach wilted and the mushrooms browned I added steamed, chopped broccoli, steamed, chopped cauliflower and chunky salsa, lightly drained.

10. After the dough has doubled in size, punch down the dough, and turn it out onto your floured work surface again (you won’t need as much flour this time). Knead the dough a few times, place the bowl over the top of the dough, and leave it to rest for 20 minutes.

11. Divide the dough into 6 pieces. Using a rolling pin, roll out each piece of dough to form a circle. Be careful not to roll too thin! They’ll be about 6-8 inches. Spoon your filling on half of each circle of dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border at the edge. Fold the dough over to enclose the filling, crimp the edges closed with your fingers or a press lightly with a fork.

12. Transfer the filled calzones to a non-stick cookie sheet (we lined ours with a Silpat Nonstick Silicone Baking Mat and baked 3 there, and 3 on a Baking Stone) Bake at 450 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Allow the calzones to cool for a few minutes before serving.

Note from Messy Mom: After making these, the dough seems to be all-purpose enough to use for other dishes. If I bake an apple pie, for instance I could make this dough, use half, freeze half - but I’d probably add twice as much honey for a dessert dough. Still, it’s all whole wheat and there is no actual sugar, just a drizzle of honey! I may finally be able to endulge in pizza again!

Hooray for the first ever Foodie Fight!

332 people (plus 2 guest judges) voted for their favorite lemon and potato inspired dish. The winner was this potato wrapped cod. We tried making it too. We were concerned about slicing a hard, raw potato with our cheap cheese slicer, but it worked surprisingly well! We used tilapia instead of cod, and made a mustard sauce instead of an aioli (no mayo or olive oil). It was delicious! The instructions by http://www.peterandrewryan.com really helped us prepare it with confidence - especially the tip to leave the potato alone even if it means leaving the room.

You can read all the Foodie Fight rules here: http://www.foodiefights.com/rules/ Basically you get two featured ingredients. Then you make a course with those 2 ingredients and blog about it. An entree, appetizer, dessert - anything you want it to be! Just keep your entry to one course please.

Congrats to Pete! We hope you keep running, cooking and making art - hey, just like us!

One Bowl - fast and delicious!!
We were craving something baked up fresh today, but didn’t want to O.D. on sugar, so we opted to bake muffins. Muffins are fun because they can be a breakfast or a snack, they can be eaten alone or with something yummy spread on top. Usually we make muffins using applesauce or bananas to provide moisture without needing a lot of oil or butter, but today we looked online to find something new. We adapted this recipe for Peanut butter muffins brushed with melted jelly and dipped in chopped peanuts.

Ingredients:

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Sift together the flour, sugar and baking powder in a large bowl
3. Microwave the butter until melted, about 22 seconds
4. Cut peanut butter and butter into dry mixture until it resembles coarse meal
5. Chop peanuts - the easy way to chop a small amount like this is to place them on a plate and smash them with the back of a soup spoon or meat mallet. Add to batter in large bowl.
6. Crack the eggs and beat them in a separate small bowl
7. Add beaten eggs and milk; stir just until dry ingredients are moistened
8. Fill jumbo muffin rack about 2/3 full with the batter
9. Bake at 400° for 20 minutes, or until done. You can test the centers by poking them with a toothpick. If the toothpick has sticky batter on it when you remove it, let them bake a few more minutes. We like them just barely done, still mushy.

Makes 6 jumbo muffins or 18 regular sized muffins.