Woof, woof, woof......

Hey, this is Red, the official blog dog of Tupper Cooks!

I'd like to report that the Syracuse Orange beat the Georgetown Hoyas 58-51 today at the Verizon Center in D.C.

With that win the "Cuse stands at 24-6 overall and is in 5th place in the Big East.

"Cuse is looking good at the right time with March only a blink away!

Here's a pic of me celebrating after the game.

Yup, I was pretty played out!

The Difference..........

between a Calzone and a Stromboli.

A few days back I posted about a stromboli I made.

My good friend Doc read the post and asked me what the difference was between a calzone and a stromboli.

It's a blustery, snowy day so I did a little research.

They are quite similar and regional differences and personal preferences can make it hard to separate the two.

After doing a bit of research to see if what I thought was true, I'd say the following.

A calzone is more of a pocket or turnover, half-moon shaped.  It's fillings can be numerous, peppers, mushrooms, Italian meats, etc. and mozzarella .  For some reason I associate ricotta cheese with the calzones I've had.  I'm not a big fan of ricotta in this case, too much moisture for my liking. 

A calzone is more of an individual serving (or perhaps 2 servings).

Here's a pic of a calzone I grabbed from Wikipedia.

 

Pretty much what I thought.

A stromboli is different in that it's a roll or in some cases rolled up jelly roll style, and then sliced.

It'll have cheese (mozzarella, parm, etc.) but not ricotta in my view.

It's meat centered. My favorites are pepperoni, salami, italian hams, etc.

I also put sauce in my stromboli, whereas a calzone would have it on the side for dipping.

Here's another grab from Wikipedia of a stromboli.

 If you click on my post link about the stromboli above, you'll see I don't roll mine like that, but after looking at this pic I'm reconsidering.

That's what I think, what say you?
Here's a link at Serious Eats Talk where I posted the question. Got some great responses, check it out.

Eat well my friends!

No-Roll, No-Stretch Sicilian Style Pizza...

Here's a very easy  recipe for Sicilian style pizza.

Last night I made this for the 2nd time and followed the recipe correctly for the first.

Ha! It made a difference.

Here's the recipe-Kenji's Easy Sicilian

If you've ever had NY Sicilian pie, you'll like this.

I didn't take many pics because the batteries in my camera were fading fast, but if you go to the link above you'll get  step by step directions for making the pie with great pics.

I made mine on my baking sheet which is a little bigger than the one recommended, but no worries. 

The dough basically spreads itself. It's really wet, and take your time while covering the pan to preserve the air structure that develops during the rise.

I put sliced red pepper and onion on the left side, the right was just cheese.

After cooking it, I sliced it up and put it on my wire racks to cool, this helps prevent the soggy bottom.

It's fairly thick, so this is a good idea. Let it cool for 5 or ten minutes and attack!

Nicely done.

Yeah baby.

I forgot to mention Kenji has a sauce recipe on that link too. 

I made my own, but they're very similar, so give that a go too, you won't be disappointed!

Double vision......

No, that was a Foreigner song.

Double Trouble then?

No, but I love the late, great Stevie Ray Vaughn.

Let's just call it double pie for the Syracuse-Villanova game this past Monday night.

The 'Cuse manged to beat 'Nova in Philly avenging an earlier loss at the Dome.

Sitting at 23-6, and 6th place in the Big East with two games to go we're in pretty good shape heading into March.

So here's the pizza deal.

I'm constantly searching for ways and methods to make a better pie in my home oven.

A year or two ago I had no idea as to the variety of ways one can cook a pizza.

I used to just slap out the dough on a round pan, and bake it at 375 or 400 degrees. 

Cooking time would be about 15 minutes.

It'd make a passably good pie, but nothing to write home about.

Then I discovered Slice. An offshoot of the Serious Eats website, which is basically a running discussion on pizza.  

I could write a ton about Slice, but if you're serious about pizza, I'd recommend that you click on the link above an explore it.

My latest method involves using my pizza stone.

In a discussion on Slice last week about cooking methods, one of the comments inspired me to do the following.

1. I placed the stone on the 2nd highest level and pre-heated my gas oven to 525 degrees for 45 mins.

2. While it was heating up I made 2 pies. A white pizza with Evoo,chopped garlic, onion, sliced tomato, fresh grated parm, mozz, dried basil, and oregano.  The 2nd was a basic cheese pie with tomato sauce.

Here's the white pie on the peel, and on parchment paper, which I've found makes the transfer easy from peel to stone. 

3. After 45 mins. of pre-heat I turned on the broiler for 10 mins. to maximize the heating of the stone (my broiler is on the top of my oven).

4. I switched the oven back to bake @ 525, slid the pies in (one at a time).

They were done in under 5 mins. each.

Here's the finished products.

The white pie.

The cheese pie.

They were both very good.  

A lot better than anything I made a couple of years ago.

I think it's time to make another pie.....

The holes in my story...

Made a stromboli for the Syracuse-Rutgers game this past weekend.

Here's the construction.

I spread my dough on a baking sheet, spred sauce in the middle 3rd.

I layered provolone,salami, and pepperoni on the sauce.

Note: See those holes at the top above the sauce?

I then added some fresh shredded mozz, oregano and dried basil.

I closed it up, tucked the ends in and flipped it onto my brand spanking new baking sheet.

Note: Notice the sauce coming out of the holes.

I baked it 450 degrees until it was nice and brown.

Note: Notice the sauce and cheese that leaked during cooking.

D'oh! What in the hell was I thinking, leaving those holes exposed?

Honestly I didn't think it would hemorrage like that, or I would have attempted to patch the holes prior to baking.  

I should have known better.

My mistake was not using my roller to spread the dough for a consistent thickness from center to edge. I spread it by hand, leaving the middle way thin, and much thicker on the edges. 

With a pizza you could get away with this, it'd self seal. With a stromboli, well, the pic says it all.....

So, that said, it still came out to my satisfaction ( I scooped off the cheese and sauce and ate it!)

Live, cook and learn my friends!

Soup and Sandwiches...

Here's a couple of offerings from this past week. 

I made some hot hoagies. I went to a Quizno's a while back and had a hot sub (hoagie, hero, whatever...) I realized that eating them hot is the way to go. 

When you eat a cold sub, they can be very good, but heating them up, in this case, at 325 degrees wrapped in aluminum foil for 30 minutes, or under the broiler, makes a good sub better. 

The heat makes the flavor of the ingredients  meld into something that's hard to stop eating.

Here's the hot Italian hoagie.

Picked up the sub dressing, which is very good at Shaheen's deli, along with the cold cuts.

Hard salami, cooked salami, sandwich style pepperoni, and some honey ham, with provolone.

Add some tomato and sliced onion, put it in the oven for 30 minutes, and viola'.

Now, doesn't that look good?

The rolls also came from Shaheen's. They sell a 6 pack of hoagie rolls that make great sammies.

A picture is worth a thousand bites.

Then came the soup the next night.

Whilst surfing for a soup recipe the other day I hit the motherlode.

A blog where they were featuring soups, one blog with over 200 recipes-Soupapalooza

Click here for link! 

After looking at a ton of recipes I settled on the bacon minestrone. 

Other than french onion soup I've never made much soup, I leave that up to the better half who's way ahead of me in that department, but after looking at this recipe, it met my qualifiers, quick and easy with simple ingredients.

Bacon Minestrone Soup Recipe-Click Here!

I tweaked the recipe a bit, doubled the bacon, garlic, carrots,broth and put in 12 oz. of Barilla Rotini pasta. I also added some water. Pretty much played it by ear. 

In the pot simmering.

In the bowl and on the plate with some french bread.

I must humbly admit, it was really good, so much so, that I'd make it again.

You don't really taste the bacon in the final product, I think it helps more with the overall flavor, and since it's pre-cooked it doesn't add too much fat.

Now I'm wondering if I could make the hoagies and the soup on the same night......

(Nah, better not......) :)

Bread time.....

Hadn't been on bread kick in a while so a few days ago I made a couple of loaves of no-knead bread.

The first loaf.  My better half shaped this one, she used to work in a bakery.

The 2nd loaf.  I shaped this one, I never worked in a bakery.

No-knead is ridiculously easy to make.  

It's best consumed within 24 hrs., which isn't a problem in our house.

It makes great toast also.

And just for kicks I made a pizza pie on my new baking sheet.

Good stuff!

Syracuse @ 20-4.

Last time I posted we were 18-2, lost two more after that, going to 18-4.  But no need to panic Orange fans, with a big win at UConn and an easy win in Tampa yesterday we're 20-4.

Here's a shot of the Game Pie.

 

What's not to like?

Dinner rolls....

Made these Friday night.  Found the recipe on Bigoven.com.
I always use the stand mixer, because it makes kneading easy! And it's all about easy in my kitchen.

Click here for recipe! 

 

 Rising dough.

 

 Nice little balls.

More rising balls!

Finished!

Got Snow????

We do!

From Tupper Cooks! to Tupper shovels!

(or gets plowed.....)

Veggie Chili with Peanut Butter...

Yes, I made vegetarian chili and it had peanut butter in it. 

You know what? I'd make it again.  I've made lots of chili over the years, but never with peanut butter and always with meat.  The other day whilst surfing for something a bit different I ran across this recipe. 

Click here for recipe! 

I gave it a shot and was very happy with the result.

In the pot, simmering.....

We had it over brown rice, add your favorite toppings.

The peanut butter gave it a distinct peanutty taste, which I found a welcome change.
Two days later I'm still eating it, and it's better!  (Although I must confess, I boiled up a couple of Hebrew National Franks today, chopped them up and mixed them into the chili, hard to take the meat out of the meatatarian!)

If you're looking for something a bit different give it a go.....