Pizza Pockets!

Make perfect pizza pockets by wrapping mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce, onions and mushrooms in pizza dough.

 

Ingredients:

-2 cups warm water

-2 tablespoons sugar

-2 packets dry yeast

-3 cups white flour

-3 cups whole wheat flour

-1/2 cup oil or butter

-2 eggs

-1 tablespoon salt

-2 cups tomato sauce

-2 cups cubed mozzarella cheese

-4 Portobello mushrooms diced

-2 medium size onions chopped

– salt and pepper

 

DIRECTIONS:

Put water, sugar and yeast in a large bowl.

Leave for several minutes until foamy.

Then add in oil, eggs, flour and salt.

Knead dough for several minutes then cover with a tea towel and let rise until double in bulk. (about 45 minutes)

Heat oven to 375 F

In a skillet saute onion until translucent then add in mushrooms and cook another 4 minutes.

 

Roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thickness and cut out 4×6 inch pieces.

On each rectangle of dough put 3 heaping tablespoons of sauted mushrooms and onions, a tablespoon of tomato sauce and 2-3 tablespoon of cheese.

Wrap the dough around the filling overlapping the edges.

Bake at 375 for 25 minutes.

Enjoy your delicious and inexpensive pizza pockets.

This is gmom sending out pizza love to all WP bloggers out there typing on late into the night.

We are cooking!

Spicy Meat Empanadas

Empanadas are a meat or vegetable filling (or even chocolate or fruit) wrapped in pastry or bread dough.

You can find some variation of empanadas almost anywhere with the ingredients adjusted according to the country.

This recipe is the Portuguese empanadas.

It is made with ground beef, onions,peppers, paprika, cumin and cocoa thus connecting it to its province of origin,  San Juan and San Luis.

Empanadas’ are the go to food for the working folk as they are easily eaten out of hand and travel well much like the American sandwich (only better).

Here in Baltimore we make them occasionally because we love them.

They are a little labor intensive to make everyday so it’s a special when we have them.

Even little boy Hoo eats his share, jalapeno peppers and all.

I use eggroll wrappers and fry them,  but  pizza dough works fine as well.

If you choose to use pizza dough then wrap your filling and bake the empanada pockets in a

375 F oven for 20 minutes or until golden. 

So from gmom’s house to yours here is your international recipe for your X-mas party hor d’oeuvre.

Empanadas

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Ingredients:

– 2 onions roughly chopped

-2 green peppers chopped

-4 cloves of garlic minced

– 2 jalapeno peppers chopped (for a hotter dish leave the spines intact and some of the seeds)

Saute the onion, peppers and garlic for 5 minutes.

Add in:

-2 pounds of ground beef and continue cooking until beef is no longer pink.

Add in:

– 1 small can tomato sauce (10-12 ounces)

– 1 teaspoon oregano

-2 tablespoon cumin

-1 tablespoon cocoa

-1 tablespoon paprika

-1/4 cup flour

Mix thoroughly in to the meat and peppers and cook another 5 minutes.

Take off the heat and let cool completely.

Season with salt and pepper to your taste.

Now for the fun part!

Put a large skillet with a few tablespoons of oil on a medium heat.

Lay out your eggroll wrappers.

Put a large dollop of filling in the center of the wrapper.

Moisten the edges as you seal the wrapper around the filling.

Put several empanadas in to the hot skillet to fry.

After a minute turn to fry the other side.

Eggroll wrappers brown and crisp quickly.

Enjoy your delicious empanadas as hor d’oeuvres for a party or as a first course for a special international touch.

Enjoy WP friends.

Happy holidays from gmom and family to you!

Mashed Potatoes and Gravy Recipe OMG It’s Better Than…

There are some foods that children shouldn’t be allowed to eat.

Now I see you shakin’ your heads but it’s true.

When the “grown ups” are moaning and smooching their spoons now there is something going on that’s not for little mouths.

Take mashed potatoes and gravy for instance.

It looks innocent enough.

But don’t let looks fool you.

The dowdiest of spuds  with a slick of creamy gravy can tickle you up like the first time a boy ever…well you know.

and you never looked back.

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Boil potatoes until they are fork tender.

Run them under cool water and peel.

Mash with a masher, food processor or even the back of a fork.

Like a much-loved mattress a little lumpy is good.

To make gravy:

Take all the pan drippings from your turkey, chicken or meat.

Put them on the stove and heat the pan.

Stir around so all the tasty bits get loosened up.

If your pan is fairly dry add in 1 cup of water and 1 cup of red wine.

In a cup measure out 1/4 cup of corn starch and 1/2 cup of water.

Stir to combine.

Pour this mixture into your pan drippings.

Stir the gravy as it thickens.

Once the thickening (cornstarch + water) is mixed  pour the gravy into a saucepan over a low to medium heat.

Let the gravy cook until it is the consistency you like.

How’s that for easy.

Now pour this yummy delectable bit of naughtiness over the mashed spuds and….

Stand around the kitchen with all the daughters and women and eat the mashed potatoes and gravy out of coffee mugs cause you just can’t wait till dinner…

Just kidding.

(That’s what gmom and the girls did while the boys played some poker and watched football.)

Happy Thanks WP kids.

Hope your day was as yummy as mine was.

I can’t wait for the turkey, stuffing, cranberry and gravy sandwiches tomorrow!

Baked Butternut Squash Recipe(Thanksgiving)

The tools to attack the butternut squash.

The big day is coming and cooking ahead makes life so much easier!

The Chef may or may not be frying the turkey ’cause it looks like rain here in B’more.

I may just slow roast it.

But I love nothing better than to sit with the kids and watch the Macy’s Day parade on TV, and then (I know this is so lame…) the International Dog Show.

I’m probably the only person without a competitor watching.

But me and Cujo we just loves it!

So I don’t want to be in kitchen the whole day.

I want my chocolate spoon in my good Ghiardelli hot cocoa and some french toast.

Maybe some caramel popcorn during the day.

But to get that free time and still have a meal for 15 people come late afternoon I have to cook today (and yesterday).

This side dish of baked butternut squash is another seasonal good one that goes nicely with the traditional foods of Thanksgiving.

Just be careful when you are cutting this hard squash up you don’t cut yourself.

You can soften it first by cooking it in the microwave for a few minutes first then proceeding with the recipe.

If you do that be sure to pierce the squash deeply so if pressure builds inside it doesn’t explode all over the place.

Directions:

Peel the butternut squash and cut it into cubes.

After the squash is peeled cut it into cubes. There will be seeds in a center pocket that you can discard.

Dice up 1/2 cup of an onion.

Put the butternut squash into a baking dish.

Toss with 1/2 cup of oil.

Put the onion over the squash pieces and sprinkle on salt, pepper and a teaspoon of sugar.

The squah and onions seasoned and ready to bake.

Cover tightly with aluminum foil.

Into the oven you go covered snugly with aluminum foil

Bake at 350 for 40 minutes.

Take foil off and continue baking until squash is fork tender, about 15 minutes.

If you are making this dish ahead of time don’t do the last 15 minutes of bake time.

When you reheat the dish on Thursday prior to the meal you will finish off the baking then.

That’s it another yum dish to serve on your Thanksgiving table.

The finished dish after baking uncovered the last 15 minutes will have browned edges and be so yummy.

Enjoy WP friends.

Happy Thanksgiving!

From gmom and Hoo and Cujo the dog.

Delicious Cranberry Sauce With or Without Grand Marnier

3 ingredients plus 1 optional. You will need 1 bag of fresh cranberries.(BTW you can buy them in bulk now that they are in season and freeze them with the same cooking results) 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of orange juice and optionally 1/4 cup of Grand Marnier.

Nothing complements a turkey dinner as nicely as cranberry sauce.

The sweet tart combination with a bite of succulent turkey is oh so good!

So here is my favorite way to prepare it.

Easy as pie as usual.

“You will need one cup of orange juice”

Put one cup of orange juice into a pot then add in one cup of sugar.

Bring the orange juice and the sugar to a a boil briefly to dissolve the sugar then add in the cranberries.

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Let Cranberries sugar and orange juice simmer for 10 minutes. You will hear cranberries pop. After 10 minutes you can add in 1/4 cup of Grand Marnier if you like. The sauce will be syrupy but when cool will jell.

This is a much loved recipe for it’s great taste.

Ease of preparation and (wait for it) you can make it ahead by several days and it keeps beautifully in the refrigerater.

Happy Thanksgiving Day WP’s.

Watch for the turkey recipe Thursday.

The bad boy is brining away already.

This is gmom and baby Hoo and Cujo the dog sending out cranberry peace to all the blogger cooks out there.

Peace out.