You thought Flitwick/Mrs. Norris was bad? (And cooking/food.)

[thistlechaser]

How about Crookshanks/The Whomping Willow? (I quite like the idea of what to do when the tree needs a trim, as well as the interaction between the cat and tree (but not the translations). Other than that, I'm mostly linking to it for the uniqueness of the idea.)

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So at long last, I made elo_sf's Rachael Ray's calzones.

Recipe here.

It's sort of funny that I actually thought these might come out well, since it was *me* who would be cooking them. Other than leaving out the sausage, I followed the directions to the letter. (Though I did cut them in half, since I'm only one person eating.)

The first trouble came with the dough. It stuck to itself and to everything else, so I couldn't get it neat and looking nice. Who cares about that though, since I was intending just to eat it, not photograph it.

I chopped the garlic by hand, making it as fine and small as I could. This turned out not nearly not even close to small/fine enough. Biting into raw garlic is GROSS, even if it's a small piece of it. One whole clove of chopped garlic, blech.

So once I was done putting it all together, they weren't calzone-shaped at all. (But again, that's not too big of a deal, since they'd be even less calzone-shaped once I ate them.) Into the oven, out of the oven. While the "garlic knots" (made with the extra dough) were nothing like real garlic knots, they were semi-okay. The calzones were just icky. While I like ricotta cheese, plain dough stuffed with ricotta is a little (lot) too much. I put in as much of everything else as I was supposed to, but I tasted nothing but ricotta cheese and raw garlic. BLECH.

elo_sf, did you chop your garlic by hand? Is it just me having raw garlic issues, maybe?

Anyway, since I have another package of dough and a ton of cheese, I have another chance at this. Maybe I'll just make pizza rolls (or normal pizza) with it instead... It's really too bad this didn't work out, I was all set for yummy NY style calzones.

Oh the plus side, I'm now totally safe from vampires.

Comments

[quasilemur.livejournal.com]

Proper mincing is something that comes with practice. A micrograter is an idea if you lack the skill and don't intend on picking it up. Personally, finely chopping garlic is more or less second nature nature to me...Digging out another tool is just more work when I can just go at it with my knife. There's also a trick to chopping any alliacious bulb (garlic, onion, shallot), that's really simple once you know how.

As for the sausage...major modifications like that are particularly inadvisable when you're not very practiced in cooking. In most recipes, sausage is there for a reason. Aside from the meat, with its meatiness, texture, and ever-essential fats, it's packed with various aromatics and lots of salt. You remove those things without proper compensation, and you're probably going to be in a bad way.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

A micrograter is an idea if you lack the skill and don't intend on picking it up.

I doubt I will, since I wouldn't use it often. I'm just going to get a char of that pre-minced stuff. Among other reasons, it'll stay better that way. (I usually use only one clove, then the rest goes bad before I need more.)

sausage stuff

Alas and alack! Maybe I'll just make baked ziti with the rest of the cheese, that always comes out yummy.

Thanks for the info!