Mixed Nuts: Making Meals Monday

We're back! After a long (looooooooooooooooooooooooong) hiatus, Making Meals Mondays will return. At least until I run out of Pinterest meal ideas.

If you are new to our blog, every Monday I used to post 3 meals I would be fixing that week, and how to prepare them. I found that if I put them on the blog, I felt responsible to follow through and cook them, so it is time for that again. I am not a very good cook, and I really do hate it, but I am tired of what we have been eating lately.

So, thanks to Pinterest which helps me NOT have to search for meals endlessly for meals, I have found some things to cook over the next couple of weeks. But here is what we are fixing this week.

And no worries- we eat more than 3 meals. Promise. No starving kids. I just only post three because some nights we eat quick (boring) meals, or go out.

BBQ Chicken Rolls
makes 12
12 egg roll wrappers (roughly 4 square inches)
1 cup cooked and shredded chicken (6 ounces)
1/2- 2/3 cup BBQ sauce
1 cup crumbled blue cheese (4 ounces) - (or for us - we used cheddar cheese)
1 cup broccoli slaw or cole slaw (dry)
Small bowl of water
Nonstick cooking spray
Blue cheese dressing, for serving (we used sour cream instead)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Lay egg roll wrappers on a clean work surface. In a small bowl, stir chicken* (see note below) and BBQ sauce until well coated, using more or less sauce depending on your spice preference. The meat should be moist with sauce.

Begin by placing one tablespoon of the broccoli slaw on the diagonal of the bottom right corner of one of the wrappers. Next, place 2 tablespoons of shredded BBQ chicken evenly on top of the slaw. Spoon 1 tablespoon of the blue cheese crumbles over the chicken. Do not overfill.

To fold: Fold the bottom right corner over the stuffing mixture so that it covers it completely, with the tip of the corner now pointing to the center of the egg roll wrapper. Fold in the bottom left corner, followed by the right, so that you now have formed an envelope. Roll the wrap upward one time, leaving the top left corner open. Wet your index finger in the small bowl of water and press to moisten the top left corner. Now fold that down on top of the filled roll, sealing it like you would an envelope.

Repeat with remaining rolls.

Place the rolls on a wire rack set on top of a cookie sheet (or just on a greased cookie sheet) coated with nonstick cooking spray. Spritz each roll evenly with nonstick cooking spray. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until the rolls crisp and turn a light golden brown.

*Note: To make the chicken, place 1/2 lb of uncooked chicken breast in a small pot and fill with enough water just to cover it. Bring to a boil on your stovetop, reduce the heat slightly, then simmer for about 12 minutes, or until cooked through. Drain and let cool before shredding with two forks, pulling against the grain of the meat.

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Homemade Calzone

I am going to share this right from the website I found it because it has pictures that I found really useful. ALSO - PLEASE PUT THE WHOLE THING ON THE BAKING SHEET BEFORE YOU START!!!! This was a mistake the person make, and it made it really hard to transfer.

Roll pizza dough into a rectangle the length of your baking sheet. It can be wider than the sheet because you will be folding the sides in. Place the dough on the baking sheet and let the sides hang off. (I bought pillsbury pizza dough in the can)

Put sauce on the center half of the dough.

Just like pizza, add your toppings (our favorites are pepperoni, olives, and mushrooms). Calzones can be a good way to use up leftovers. Any small amounts of meat, cheese and vegetables can be put into the calzone.

Then add cheese.

Now comes the special part. Cut the dough on the sides at about 3/4 inch intervals. Don't cut all the way to the filling.

This is what it looks like when all the cuts are made.

Then "wrap the baby." (That's what my friend said it looked like when I showed her how to make this recipe!) Start at the bottom and alternating sides, overlap the strips of dough onto the filling in a lattice pattern. You can stretch the pieces to fit all the way over the filling.

Here is the calzone ready to bake. Bake your calzone at 375° F (190° C) for about 25-30 minutes.

Uh oh... don't do what I did. Now how in the world do I get this huge thing onto a baking sheet? I knew there was something I was forgetting!!

For the second one, I remembered to start with my rectangle of dough ON a baking sheet. That makes cutting the dough a bit harder, but I used my handy kitchen scissors.

By the way, the same dough wrapping technique can be used for sweet fillings too. See my apricot coffeecake for an example.

The Calzone -- Baked, Cooled, and Ready to Eat

After baking your calzone, remove it to a wire rack to cool.

Aren't they beautiful? And the whole house smells like a pizzeria!

I use a recipe from allrecipes.com.

Once it's cool, you can cut the calzone into slices.
All the goodies are sealed inside the bread. Portable pizza!

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This person's site: http://foodgawker.com/popular/favorites/ - has a TON of great recipes, really, but I am making this one this week:

Kaytucky Chicken

Directions:
4 chicken fillets
4 frozen puff pastry sheets
4 oz cream cheese (the firm kind)
few rashes of bacon
flat-leaf parsley
1 spring onion
1 large egg
pepper
salt
Directions:
This is what we call ontbijtspek here. It’s kinda like bacon, only much salter. They come in small portions. I’ve cooked four thin slices and drained them on a paper towel. I’m not using too much, but feel free to add as much bacon as you like.

I’ve also chopped a spring onion with my cute orange baby Santoku.

And I’ve finely chopped a small handful of flat-leaf parsley. Gotta love the stuff. You can use any herb you like, though.

Add the spring onions, parsley, crumbled up bacon and a good pinch of pepper to 4 oz firm cream cheese; I’ve opted for low-fat cream cheese.

Mix it all up. Adding a little garlic, chili pepper and/or grated cheese also tastes great! Just go wild! Think of fun combinations.

Make a fairly deep cut in each chicken fillet. And spread 1/4 of the cream mixture in there.

My puff pastry sheets were fairly small, so I’ve used two for each chicken fillet. I kinda stuck them together, and flattened them a little with my dough pin.