Shepherd's pie calzone

So, I had a lot of leftover mashed potatoes and meat filling from my Shepherd's pie experiment yesterday.

I decided to make use of them this morning:

Shepherd's pie calzone.

When I asked one of my sisters about what my mom put in the Shepherd's pie she remembered it having carrots and peas. 

This did not match my memory of the recipe.

I called my other sister this morning and asked about her memories of the recipe. She remembered my mother putting a layer of canned corn between the meat and mashed potatoes - which was exactly what I remembered.

So, this morning I started with trying to make Shepherd's pie fritters.

I thawed one of the pieces of pizza dough I had in the freezer and rolled it out.

Leftover mashed potatoes and some defrosted frozen corn.

A little bit of the Shepherd's pie meat mixture.

Another piece of dough on top.

Pinch it into a nice tidy bundle.

A few minutes in hot oil and ta da!!

The first one turned out perfect but the idea of making 50 teeny tiny Shepherd's pie fritters was not appealing this morning.

So, the Shepherd's pie fritter experiment turned into a Shepherd's pie calzone.

A few minutes in the oil and...

A thing of beauty.

The taste of the red wine seemed to have mellowed out overnight or the addition of sweet corn balanced out the flavor - I am not sure which.

Either way it was delicious! 

The dogs were sitting politely by the table (drooling) while I was eating this.

Yes, they did get a nibble of the crust that had no trace of onions whatsoever:-)

You can tell it's Monday by the pizza

Pizza with artichoke hearts, baby asparagus and ground bison.

It looks pretty enough, right?

But take my word for it, this pizza was a big disaster. 


The disaster part? That's how you can tell it's a Monday.


The train wreck started innocently enough.

This seemed like a good idea at the time. I added dried rosemary (which I did finely dice) to the pizza dough. But the result was like adding teeny tiny sticks into the dough. 

And it was just as fun to gnaw on.


I was also trying out a new sauce.

Another lesson learned - taste the new sauce BEFORE you douse your dough in it.

There was nothing really wrong with this sauce but it was on the tart side and I like my pizza sauce a bit more sweet.

Keep in mind, this was not the kind of train wreck where the engine suddenly derails and everything explodes.

Nope.

This is one of those train wrecks that happen in slow motion, each car going slightly off kilter until the whole train is a mess. 

Then came the toppings.

At this point I think the pizza was still edible (other than the rosemary twiggy bits). The combination of artichoke hearts and baby asparagus is a great one.

But then I added some ground meat.

For some reason the slightly gamey taste of the ground bison was a terrible combination with the other ingredients. I would not do this combo again.

Then came the cheese.

It looks like a lot of cheese but I probably should have added more. 

Yes, it did come out of the oven looking very pretty.

The tell-tale sign that I had a bad feeling about this pizza?

I doused it in Parmesan and black pepper before I even took the first bite.

Since I couldn't eat it past the first bite (Don't worry it won't go to waste, I chopped it into small pieces and put it in the fridge for treats for the dogs), I am going to do a remake for lunch.

I'm gonna go drink my green drink and contemplate my train wreck...

The calzone experiment

I had these in the fridge and they had been sitting in the veggie bin for a few days - I know I had to use them before they went bad.

I peeled them and sliced them into discs.

Take my word for it - don't cut them into discs. Why? Because they will turn into eggplant chips...

Oh, well, live and learn. Next time I will cut them in half lengthwise and that way I will get the tender, mushy eggplant that I wanted.

So, I rolled with it and chopped them fine.

For the rest of the filling I chopped one onion and cooked them in a skillet until they were translucent.

Then some frozen spinach went into a pan and when it had thawed and wilted that went into the mix.

1 Tbsp. of Tofutti cream cheese, 1 Tbsp. of nutritional yeast, 1 Tbsp. of jarred tomato sauce, 1 cup of cooked and drained spinach, 1/2 cup of cooked onions, 1 cup of cooked eggplant, garlic powder, dried basil, dried oregano and dried parsley.

I used Jenna's pizza dough recipe from Eat,Live,Run.

I spread about 1 1/2 cups of the filling on the bottom half of the dough and added sliced tomato on top.

 Then something awful happened. I was sliding the calzone off the cutting board and onto the sheet pan and it flipped over - NOOOOOOOO!!!(((

I did some minor surgery and patched the little guy up.

He went into the oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

Eggplant and onion calzone with marinara sauce.

And if I hadn't told you about the horrible mishap - you probably wouldn't know anything went wrong because one half turned out very pretty.

The calzone did taste great. 

Oh, and because it is a Monday and you might need a moment of fun - Here is a 'Where's Waldo' shot of Connor.

 

Corn and carrot fritters

I had one bit of pizza dough left over.

It was so cute and small - I couldn't bear to throw it out.

Enter the corn and carrot fritters.

I steamed some carrot and frozen corn and mixed it with a small amount of blue cheese dressing.

Then I spooned the filling into a small disk of pizza dough.

I folded over and sealed the dough - it ended up looking like a little ball.

I put about 2" of oil into a small sauce pan. I put the pan on medium high heat. 

When the oil came up to temperature (when a tiny bit of flour instantly bubbles when dropped in the oil), I gently dropped in the dough. I rolled them in the oil so they browned evenly. Then I drained them on paper towels.

These were incredibly delicious - but I don't know many deep fried foods that aren't.

And, to my surprise, they weren't greasy at all.

These would make great appetizers - in fact, I think I will make them for the next party I attend.

Standards and lunch

I went on the hunt for collard greens but my neighborhood store (family owned and has tons of veggies) did not have any collard greens.

When I asked about it they said, "The greens were not looking great today so we didn't buy any." 


Yup, my local store has standards. I thought about running to one of the big chain grocery stores and getting some but heck no, I am going to support my local market and their firm stand on quality. My ham hocks will have to wait for another day.

This is what I made when I got home:

Parmesan and blue cheese pizza.

It was very fast since I pulled out the pizza dough from the freezer last night.

I used a bottle to roll out the dough, hence the hatch marks - I really need to get a rolling pin.

Some tomato sauce.

Parmesan and blue cheese.

It went into a 450 degree oven for 10 minutes. It came out bubbly and delicious.

I didn't forget the dogs.

Two mini balls of dough.

Dog pizza toppings.

Take my word for this - you do not want to cook the dogs mini pizzas at the same time as yours. If you do, your pizza will be infused with a very strong fishy smell.

Thankfully, I did not do this - really, I didn't...

And, as usual, the dog's treats came out gorgeous looking:
 

Smoked sardine doggie pizza.