I have so many recipes set aside to try that I am constantly overwhelmed! I have new cookbooks that I want to try and I am constantly making menus for the week, only to adapt the menu to new recipes I am finding on fellow food blogger sites. The pictures are absolutely beautiful and I have to admit that I am striving to learn photography, not only for food pictures, but for pictures of my garden and flowers, friends and family, and nature. I constantly get new ideas and it feels like there is just not enough time in the day to implement all these great ideas. I saw a picture of Julia Child's kitchen that was taken apart from her old home and reassembled at the Smithsonian Museum, I believe is what I read, and her husband had orginally designed this kitchen for her. By the way, Julia Child has always been the chef that I have looked up too and still do! To me, she is simply amazing! I am getting distracted from my new idea that I got from her kitchen and that is pictures hanging on her kitchen cupboard doors. Is that not cool? I just love that. . .and I would like to get pictures of my favorite dishes that I have made and photographed to frame them in contrasting matting so that I can do the same thing. I need to work on the idea a little more to get it to fit into my world, but I just love the gist of the whole thing.Okay, I made my dinner menu for the week and I also couldn't quit thinking about Deborah's Ricotta Calzones at Taste and Tell so I came home tonight, threw my whole dinner menu for the night into the wind and jumped head first into making pizza dough for the Calzones. I would like to say that this is a whole new experience for me. The world of blogging and seeing other peoples ideas from around the world pushes me to try new food ideas and techniques. . .and all I originally started my blog for was to record my own cooking efforts. I had no idea what a wonderful world of cooking that this blogging idea would bring. I look at other fellow cook's masterpieces and feel that I already have their support because there is a story behind the dish along with a picture of the final triumph after the seasonings settle in the kitchen!
So, I pulled out my pizza stone. Never have I used a bread or pizza stone before in my life NOR have I seen someone else use one in their oven. The whole experience was new and exciting! I used a roasted pepper and five cheese chicken sausage for the meat of the filling and Deborah was so right about the Calzones turning out perfect the first time. The crust *was* crunchy and chewy and the filling was creamy with the Ricotta cheese, Parmesan cheese and Mozarella cheese wrapped around seasoned sausage. I rolled by little dough balls into 9-inch circles and rested them on their parchment paper beds. I spread the filling in the middle and learned how to seal the edges of the dough by wrapping the edge over my index fingertip. When they were ready to go into the oven, I almost felt sad to bake them because I felt so proud of my accomplishment. When they did come out of the oven, off of my now broken in pizza stone, the Calzones were a beautiful golden brown color with the prettiest edging. The Kosher salt was glistening from the lights shining down on the Calzones and they were almost to pretty to eat. . .almost. =D
So Deborah's recipe for these scrumptious Calzones is Taste and Tell: Cookbook of the Month Recipe - Calzones. BTW, I so hope that this link works! This is a first for me and I have been trying to figure out how to do a link for the last four months. . .Yeesh! =D Happy Monday to everyone!
