Pizza Tarts

A couple years ago, I made some pizza dough, and having some left over, decided to make up a new meal for my picky eaters, I mean my children.  My children dubbed them pizza tarts.  The recipe for the dough isn't the same as my previous post about pizza, just so you know.  Also my children only like pepperoni and cheese, but you may add your own flare and change the stuff inside these pocket pizzas. In fact, if you do decide to try other inside goodness please share I would love to hear about what you are eating.

Pizza tarts, a new pizza sensation.

Ingredients for the pizza dough recipe are: 2 3/4 cup warm water (warm in microwave for 30 

seconds), 1 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast, 1 1/2 tablespoons coarse salt (or Kosher salt), 

1 tablespoon turbinado sugar (or white sugar), 1/4 cup olive oil, and 7 cups all purpose flour.

 Pour water, yeast, sugar, salt, and olive oil into mixing bowl.  Let rest for 10 minutes.

 Look how happy and foamy it got?

 Add flour, mix on stir setting with dough hook until combined.  Increase speed to 3 and mix
 for 10 minutes.

 

Add 3 tablespoons of olive oil large 6 quart lidded container, put dough in oil and rub oil 

all over the dough.  Let rest in warm place until doubled.

Preheat oven to 450 Fahrenheit

 Ingredients for pizza tarts recipe: 1/2 of dough(refrigerate the other half for up to two weeks), a bag of Boars Head Turkey Pepperoni (I like the flavor the best, but you may use whatever pepperoni you want), and shredded mozzarella.

Roll dough out with a little dusting of flour (the dough needs to be a little wet, not dry) into a big
1/8 inch thick rectangle.  I rolled mine out on parchment paper on my kitchen table since
 my counter space is limited (New York apartment spaces are small).

 With my trusty large rolling pin I made straight cuts using a pizza cutter.  I cut into fourths
in both directions.  I created squares about 3 1/2 inches. 

 Look at those pretty squares?  Place three pepperoni on each one.

 Sprinkle 1 tablespoon shredded mozzarella on each stack.  I have also cut cheese sticks into
1 inch lengths when my shredded cheese was all gone.

  Fold in half, think triangle shape.  Press edges together.  If you leave the dough a little wet,
then the dough will easily stick to itself and seal properly. 

 Place pizza tarts on a cookie sheet brushed with olive oil.

 Brush pizza tarts with olive oil and sprinkle with more mozzarella cheese.
Poke tarts with knife once.

Bake Pizza Tarts in oven for 15 minutes.  Remove from oven and pan. Serve with marinara sauce,
we ate ours with homemade sauce (recipe found here).

Enjoy!

Lasagna

My daughter likes lasagna, my husband likes it, and when I made it a couple of weeks ago, I was asked by a friend for the recipe.   So here it goes.  Today's lasagna was amazing, and really big.  You are welcome to make it as big as my friend's pan that I used, but you don't have to unless your feeding a crowd of ravenous long distance runners carbo loading before a track and field meet.  Well, it doesn't have to be a crowd of long distance runners, any crowd interested in lasagna will do.

 Garfield would envy this massive lasagna.

Ingredients for sauce recipe are: 1 #10 Can tomatoes (San Marzano if you can get them, my Costco
sells them), 2 lbs. ground beef, 1 lb. Hot Italian Sausage (Costco sells it), 2 zucchini,
2 yellow squash, 1 yellow onion, 1 head of garlic, salt and pepper to taste.

 

 Look at these beautiful tomatoes from Italy. Blend tomatoes with immersion blender, 

crush with hands, or puree in blender and pour into large non-reactive stock pot.

 

  Brown ground beef with salt and pepper, remove hot sausage from casing and brown with
diced yellow onion and garlic pushed through garlic press.  Add cooked meat to sauce in pot.
Place over medium heat until it boils, then reduce heat to simmer and cook for half an hour.

 Dice yellow squash and zucchini and add to sauce and simmer till squash is cooked.

Preheat oven to 375 Fahrenheit.

 Ingredients for lasagna recipe are: marinara sauce, sauteed mushrooms, 2 lbs. fresh lasagna pasta
(I made my own with the recipe I posted here), shredded mozzarella cheese, 5 cups homemade ricotta
(I made my own with the recipe found here), and shredded Parmesan cheese.

 First pour several ladle fulls of sauce in bottom of pan.

 Add pasta, more sauce, mushrooms, then ricotta and mozzarella cheese.

 Repeat three more times.  After the last layer of everything, add grated Parmesan cheese.

Place lasagna pan on large cookie sheet if you can or place aluminum foil on shelf below
middle shelf.  Put lasagna in oven above aluminum foil or cookie sheet, bake uncovered for
45 minutes, or until cheese is brown.

Look at that beautiful lasagna.   It was delicious, perfectly seasoned, not salty, delicious.

Enjoy!