Two Experiments: Pizza Roll and Raspberry-Oat Bars

Experiment #1. So, every now and then an idea pops into my head, and I just have to try it. I had two ideas recently that I decided to go with, and they both turned out so good, I thought I would share, after a long hiatus with the blog.


First, my wife Susan bought a whole bunch of meat for me to play Iron Chef with. One of the items was 2 pounds of ground beef. Hmmm…what to do with that? At first, I thought I would make a simple Bolognese sauce and then layer it in a lasagna. But, I needed celery, carrot, and onion for a mirepoix, and the rules state that I can only use what is in the house. And then it just hit me…roll up the burger in a pizza crust, jellyroll style, put some cheese on top, and bake it. It sounded really intriguing, so I decided to go for it (after waffling a bit with the lasagna idea some more). After talking with Susan, I made some changes to the basic idea…I decided to brown the burger a bit with some onion and garlic to make sure the burger got done, and to drain a bit of the fat, if necessary. I also decided to add some leftover pizza sauce to give it a bit more flavor and to make sure it wasn’t too dry. So, I made a pizza dough:

4 cups King Arthur Bread Flour

1 package rapid rise yeast

2 tsp kosher salt

3 tbsp olive oil

1 ¾ cup warm water

I put the first 3 ingredients in my food processor (with the plastic blade) and pulse to mix. I put the olive oil into a measuring cup, and then add the warm water. I turn on the food processor, and then slowly but steadily add the water. I only use the machine to bring the dough together, and then pull it out. Ideally, the dough will be a bit sticky, so you’ll want some flour on your hands and counter. I kneaded the dough for about 1 minute or so, and then put it into an oiled bowl, wrapped with plastic wrap, and then placed in my warmed oven to rise for a couple of hours.

When the dough was close to doubled in size, I browned my burger with 3 cloves of minced garlic and ½ of a chopped red onion (found in the bowels of our veggie drawer in the fridge). I also grabbed the tomato sauce that was left over from pizza on Friday night. This was about half a recipe of my sauce, which is this:

1 15-oz can tomato sauce
1 6-oz can tomato paste
1-2 tsp onion powder
1-2 tsp garlic salt
2 tsp oregano
2-3 tsp basil

Honestly, I just eyeball the last 4 ingredients, so I’m not totally sure on the amounts. Anyway, I put all of the above into a small sauce pan, stir or whisk it together, and then let it simmer on the stove for about 20 minutes. I had about half of that recipe left for this particular experiment, so I just used what I had, and it turned out to be perfect.

When the dough was ready, I pulled it out, kneaded it on a floured surface, and then began rolling it out. I rolled out the whole thing until it was about ¼” thick or so. Then I used a spatula to spread the tomato sauce out over the dough, except for about 1-2 inches near the edges. I evenly spread the burger mixture on the tomato sauce, covered that with parmesan cheese, and topped it all with grated mozzarella cheese. The really tricky part came next…I grabbed the edge of the dough, and very slowly and very carefully began to roll. It is absolutely critical that you start this on a fairly well floured work surface, or you will be screwed at this point. However, I was able to roll the whole thing up like a jelly roll, and then sealed the ends and the seam where the roll came together. I placed the whole thing on a buttered, rimmed baking sheet, and baked it for an hour at 400, or until the top was nicely browned. I let it cool for a while, and then sliced it and served…it turned out great, with the dough being done all the way through.

Experiment #2. So, this one had been percolating for some time, and decided that Monday afternoon was a good day to give it a shot. I had gotten home early from work and needed something to do (just ask Susan), and so decided to give this a whirl. My idea had been to combine butter, rolled oats, and brown sugar in my stand mixer, put half of the mixture in the bottom of a baking dish, add a layer of raspberry jam, add the rest of the mix, and bake.

Having no idea if that would actually work or not, I decided to check some recipes for oatmeal bars or oatmeal cookies. Based on what I found, I decided to modify my idea a bit, and add some other ingredients. So, here is what I did:

1 ¾ stick unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
2 cups flour
1 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
3 tsp baking powder
3 cups rolled oats
1 cup chocolate chips
1 ½ cups chopped pecans
1 9-oz jar Smucker’s seedless raspberry jam

I put the first 3 ingredients into my Kitchenaid stand mixer and mixed with the beater. When that was mixed, I added the 3 eggs, and mixed those, then added the flour, and mixed that in as well. I added the milk, mixed that in, and then added the next 3 ingredients. I then added the oats, chips, and pecans, and finished the batter. I added half of the mixture to a buttered (sides and bottom ) 9x13 pyrex baking dish, spread the jam over the top, and then spooned the rest of the mixture over the top of the jam. I baked at 350 for an hour, let it cool for a bit, and served it warm. It was really good, but would have been fantastic with vanilla ice cream. I put it in the fridge, and today it is just as good chilled (which definitely helped it set so that you can actually cut it into bars). One day I’m going to try my original, simpler idea, but this turned out really nice.

Always Have A Backup Plan

So, the other night, I decided I was going to get nutty with coconut. I’d been thinking about something Indianish…some nice, creamy coconut milk, some shredded coconut for flavor, a bit of cilantro, some spice, maybe some nuts…I was in total experiment mode.

Susan threw me for a bit of loop by bringing home a whole coconut. Crikeys…what the crap was I supposed to do with that? But, I like a good challenge, so I read up on coconut smashing in “How to Cook Everything” by Mark Bittman (a wonderful bible of cooking…this could really suffice as your only cookbook). As dinner time neared, I wrapped my coconut in three Target bags, and whapped the crap out of it on my concrete stoop. This worked like a champ; the coconut was in several manageable pieces.

I took it inside, and scraped some of the remaining brown stuff off the flesh, and then took a small nibble to check out the flavor. It was…bitter and nasty. There seemed to be very little actual coconut flavor, and a very bitter aftertaste. Now I was in a bit of a quandary…what do I do now? I thought about how to salvage the situation as I tossed hunks of coconut flesh into my Cuisinart, specifically, about a recipe for an Indian dish called Chicken Khorma. I fished around in my pantry for some sultanas that I knew I had, so that I could add a bit of flavor and some sweetness to balance the bitterness. But the sultanas were in a single mass; they had obviously been in there awhile. How long I wasn’t sure, so I broke off a bit and tasted them, and nearly gagged. The date on the box? Sometime in 2008. I just about gagged as I spit what was in my mouth into the trash, followed by the rest of the nearly fossilized sultanas.

I grabbed a newer box of regular raisins, and threw some in there. Remembering how bitter the coconut was, I tossed in some more. To this I added some dry-toasted nuts, some cilantro, a can of coconut milk, cilantro, and a jalapeno. I whirled it all up and tasted it. It was….well, it was weird. It definitely wasn’t good. It had this overly sweet (too many damn raisins!), nutty, slightly bitter aftertaste thing going. I asked Susan to taste it, who immediately became silent. Normally, if she likes something, the feedback is immediate; if she doesn’t like it, she takes a bit longer as she tries to formulate an answer. She looked at me with a bit of a grimace. I knew I was screwed.

However, I did have a backup plan. I had gotten a big tub of plain yogurt that day at the store since I was making homemade naan to go with the dish. So, as Susan dumped the nasty coconut mess down the drain, I quickly formulated a new plan. I minced about 1 ½ inches of fresh ginger, along with 3-4 cloves of garlic. I melted 2 tablespoons of butter in a large skillet, and once that was bubbling, I fried my spices (2 teaspoons each of Penzey’s Vindaloo powder, Garam Masala, and medium Chile powder). After that became wonderfully fragrant, I added the garlic and ginger, and sautéed that for about 5 minutes. Then I added two medium chopped onions, and sautéed those for about 10 minutes until they were translucent. To this I threw in about 2.2 pounds of cubed boneless, skinless, chicken thighs, and sautéed those for a while. Once those had browned a bit, I tossed in about 1 ½ cups of the plain yogurt, stirred, and let simmer for about 30 minutes to let the sauce thicken. I served it over plain white rice with hot, fresh naan…fantastic.

So, although my original plan went in the crapper (literally), I think dinner turned out pretty darn well.