There are things that seem like really good ideas but just don't turn out quite how you'd hope.
Sometimes that's a blog post that you prep on Wednesday still not making it online until Sunday. Sometimes it's the thing that's the subject of the blog post simply not turning out as you'd like.
This is (mainly) about the latter.
So, yeah. I was walking through the grocery store the other day, buying the crescent roll dough for last week's post, when I saw a new pizza crust available in the refrigerated case. We've tried a few of them in the past - trying to make at least slightly healthier versions of the preservative-filled frozen versions - and we're frequently on the lookout for new crusts.
A nice size (about 11.5" round), and rolled in the same way that you get rolled pie crusts, so there's no mess of rolling it out, etc.
Even Fiona was interested in how it would turn out.
It's rolled in parchment paper, so it's incredibly easy to work with. I was impressed - and very hopeful.
And it fit perfectly into our 12.5" pizza pan (which fits perfectly into our toaster oven).
Again, I was happy to see the parchment - it means that you don't have to worry about it sticking to the pan.
So, crust taken care of, it was time to work on the toppings.
I started with an 8-ounce can of tomato sauce, which I doctored up with oregano, garlic, pepper flakes, black pepper, salt, and just the slightest bit of sugar.
I opted to spread it all the way to the outer edge of the crust (no point in ending up with the annoying dry/hard edge that you get with most store-bought pizzas).
I put down a base layer of some of the 6-cheese Italian blend that I had left over from the pepperoni crescent pinwheels.
A layer of pepperoni...
...and some good-quality blue cheese.
We really like this brand. It's made in Minnesota and has a creamy, tangy flavor that pairs well with spice.
And, yeah, I topped it with a bit more cheese, just because.
And into the toaster oven we go!
My hopes were so high at this point. This pizza had everything going for it: tailor-made sauce, just the right toppings...
And, with a little time, it came out looking amazing.
Great thing about using parchment paper is that you don't have to worry about this sticking to the pan. And, as long as you stay below 450 degrees, the paper won't combust.
On inspection, it looked like everything had gone right. The pizza was cooked to the edge, and the toppings had all blended together.
But, no, it didn't look blurry in real life.
I did not hesitate to move it to a cutting board and dive in.
It looked great. And so we served up to dig in.
Somewhere around the second bite, though, I started to realize that the crust was... chewy. Not thick-crust chewy, but chewy none-the-less.
I don't know if you can see in the photo, but the crust seemed to kind of have two layers that weren't quite right.
Would it have been better if we'd baked it on a baking stone or a pizza pan with a perforated bottom? Maybe, but that would kind of defeat the purpose of baking it on the parchment paper.
The flavor wasn't too bad - and the crust didn't stop us from eating our dinner - but long before we were done we had already decided that we wouldn't be trying it again.
Guess it's back to the drawing board - or at least a pizza delivery or two - for now.
-----
Are there any products you've seen on the grocery store shelves that you weren't sure you wanted to try - but you wish someone else would? Let me know, and if I can find it - and if it's not too nasty looking - I'll see what I can do!
Did you all make it through the Holidays and the change of year? I'm happy to say that we all did, here. And now that it's 2019, it's time to get back to actual food on the blog!
Today, we're aiming for these Crescent Roll Pinwheels:
There is something really home-y about these that makes me kind of happy to think of them. I don't really make them often (it's been years, honestly), but I had the chance to make them this week and it was pretty fun - and with good results. Here's how we got there:
Note: The shirt is from a company called Litographs. They do shirts/posters/soft goods with the text of books printed on them in artful designs. The one I'm wearing in this is Around the World in 80 Days. I thought I'd mention that because I always have people asking me about the shirts that I have when I wear them.
As I mentioned in the video, there's not really a recipe to go along with this post. I went to Pillsbury.com and searched "Crescent Pinwheels" for the basics, and then went from there. Basics that I learned:
You're supposed to press the triangles together (or use the "crescent sheets") - though that didn't make a huge difference for me.
About 1 cup of mixed fillings should be enough filling for the full tube of dough (but you'll have to estimate).
These bake at 350 for about 12-15 minutes.
As I also mentioned in the video, I opted to try out two different tubes of crescent dough: Pillsbury and "Essential Everyday" (a less-expensive house brand at Cub grocery stores).
Now, I admit that the difference of somewhere between fifty cents and a dollar per tube (or per 24 pinwheels) seems like an odd thing to worry about. But I also know that there are times when a buck can make a huge difference in your grocery budget. And I figure that if they're going to be on the same shelves in the store - and the house brand obviously compares themselves to Pillsbury - I wanted to know how they would do.
As I'm sure many of you know, one of the best things about using dough-in-a-cardboard-tube is that you get to whack it on the counter to pop it open. (Okay. Yes. The tubes now specifically say that you're supposed to peel the outer wrap and then press a spoon against the seam until it pops. But... really... what's the fun in that?)
First up: The contender...
No. You're not missing anything. Nothing happened when I whacked it on the edge of the prep table.
After the underwhelming thud of trying the favorite way of opening the tube, I went for their "spoon at seam" technique.
However, I wasn't really sure which end of the spoon to use. And - why a spoon and not the tip of a knife? I ended up using the back end of the spoon.
Yes, it worked. No, it wasn't very fun.
I moved on to the Pillsbury. It did not disappoint.
That was after one quick whack. No spoon needed.
I feel like we need to take a moment and compare the two photos, above. Can you see how much bigger the "poof" of the Pillsbury tube is? That dough really wanted room to expand. (Consider this your daily dose of foreshadowing.)
Excitement complete, it was on to the assembly of my pinwheels.
I unrolled each "rectangle" and then tried to mush them together to get rid of the perforations. You might notice the difference in sizes. The smaller rectangles came from the "inner" portion of the roll. I'm sure that if I wanted to use a rolling pin, I could have gotten them all to the same size.
This is pre-perforation purge, obviously.
I chopped up some pepperoni. (I'm guessing that's about half a cup, right?)
I also chopped up the pitted Kalamata olives. (Oddly enough, they seemed to become a smaller amount as I chopped - while the pepperoni seemed to expand.)
First layer: olives on one side, pepperoni on the other.
Second layer: oregano for all!
The olive side really could have used a bit more oomph. If I do this again, I'll probably either get an herbed feta or just add more spice at this stage.
Feta crumbles on the olive set, "Italian cheese blend" on the pepperoni. (The blend was on sale - I honestly don't know what cheeses were in it.)
Oddly enough, this brings us to the step that had me the most nervous.
Oh. Sorry. No. The rolling-up part didn't make me nervous. Though - as I looked at the way the two different doughs were looking, it did make me wonder a bit.
The dough in the photo above this is the house brand. You can see that it's a little dry looking. The dough in the photo below is the Pillsbury, which seemed much more resilient and supple.
The actual step that had me a little freaked out was the cutting step. The full "sheets" of dough are about 4"x6", so when you roll them up the roll is only about 4" wide - but you're supposed to cut them into 6 pieces.
I started by cutting them in half.
Well... half-ish.
Then I cut each half into thirds.
I kind of loved that one of the online instructions was very specific to say that the next step is to put them on ungreased cookie sheets "cut side down."
Now, that kind of makes sense for the end pieces (because they have on cut side and one non-cut side), but all the rest have two cut sides. So... apparently they mean that you need to place them "flat" on the cookie sheet, instead of standing up...? That kind of just seems logical. So I'm not sure why they had to make it sound confusing.
Apologies. That pan looks like it's upside down and floating in space.
As I was putting them on the pan, I realized that I really should have worked the filling farther to the outer sides. The end pieces looked pretty barren.
You can see the filling in the "middle" pieces, but the end bits look like they're just dough.
On this first pan, all of the olive ones were made on the house brand dough. If you look at the dough on the left, below, you can see a few kind of dry-looking sections. Hmm...
They come out of the oven when they've become golden brown.
Unfortunately, though the Pillsbury ones turned a really nice golden brown (above), the house brand stayed a little lighter on top (though the bottoms were definitely done.)
In reality, these were not blurry.
This is probably a better comparison shot of the difference:
And then there was the size differential between the two doughs. To make sure that this wasn't a result of the filling, when I baked my second pan, I swapped the fillings. As you can see below, the house brand batches simply didn't puff as well as the Pillsbury. (The Pillsbury ones are about 2-3 inches across. The house brand ones maxed out at about 2 inches.)
You were wondering where the foreshadowing from the tube pop was going to come in, weren't you?
So... Okay. The house brand pinwheels are a tiny bit smaller, and not quite as golden. But if I didn't have the Pillsbury to compare to, I probably wouldn't have known that. This brings us to the biggest factor: taste...
In other words, I do think that - in this case - I'd vote for the name brand instead of the house brand (at least this house brand).
Although, when put all in the same dish for serving, they look pretty good, no matter what. And - with a total prep time of less than an hour (a bit longer for me, because I was taking pictures and recording video and getting ready to go out), these are a great, quick, variable, snack/appetizer.
Next time I might try one savory and one sweet. Maybe a little cream cheese and cinnamon or strawberry...
Epilogue: People at the party we took them to really seemed to enjoy them. There were two people there who had (I kid you not) never heard of dough-in-a-tube. And they were very impressed.
-----
What are you hoping to cook up in the new year? Anything you'd like to see me tackle in the kitchen? Let me know!
I was talking to a neighbor earlier this week, and she was asking whether the cookies I'd been making were going to be on the blog. I wanted to say yes, but I've honestly been pushing so hard to get things done this year that I haven't had time to take photos while baking.
I didn't even take any photos while making the dipped pretzels featured in this post. But - since they have to sit out on wrapped paper to harden, at least I do have post-prep photos.
Let me explain the idea behind them:
So... yeah... you melt the white stuff (I use a double boiler on the stove, but you can follow the package directions for the microwave if you have one), and you dip stuff in it, then let them to dry/harden on waxed paper.
Can you guess where on the prep table the bowl used to be?
It's pretty easy and fairly fast. Dipping these pretzels by hand, I made 90 of them in about 45 minutes - and that included the stovetop melting process.
I mentioned in the video that these are Gluten-Free. But, even so, can you imagine anyone turning them down? Seriously. You can do a lot of Gluten-Free stuff pretty easily - sometimes even by accident!
Frankly, that's what I need this time of year, because my brain starts to not want to process more difficult tasks. The lead-up can be pretty darned frantic, and you sometimes forget to take a little time to just enjoy it all happening. The best I can do in these cases is plate things.
Umm... This batch of Spritz cookies is also Gluten-Free! Bonus!
And wrap them in plastic.
And hope to remember to take them with me when I leave the house specifically with the intention of taking them to the neighbors. (Who among us hasn't walked out the door and realized a present/bag/set of keys was still on the counter this time of year?)
Luckily, a lot of my baked goods tend to go into the mail (or to the neighbors), so that means that in the final few days before Christmas I have nothing left to do but sit back and enjoy the world going by. Christopher and I have made a kind of tradition of going out to dinner a few days before Christmas. We try to go somewhere we might not usually go. It's a great way to take a step back, breathe a little, look at the lights, and let someone else deal with prep and delivery for a bit.
However you plan to spend the next few days - whether in the kitchen whipping up a few last-minute festive treats or on the road/in the skies or avoiding it all with a cocktail, I hope you get to enjoy it.
Merry Christmas!
-----
What are you up to for the Holidays? Do you celebrate Christmas, or some other event? Or do you avoid them all and just take advantage of the sales?
Just so you know, I'm making a New Year's resolution to be better about my blogging. I'm not planning to define "better" just yet, though. ;-)
