Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Spinach stromboli



So going to post a recipe. I made this the other night; got the recipe out of Real Simple, which the I think is the best magazine ever. The boys gobbled it down; then they asked for leftovers the next day at lunch (there were none). Then they asked me to cook it for dinner the next night.

The best part is that it's really healthy and you can get copious amounts of spinach down even the pickiest eater.... it's also really fast and easy, which is a must in the land of no dishwashers and baking everything from scratch.

What you need....
- Pizza dough.... I make my own because the nearest TJ's is 12,000 miles away. You can use frozen dough that is thawed or buy fresh that comes in one pound bags.
- Sliced lunch meat.... I think the magazine calls for salami. We use ham slices - really yum. Any kind of sliced meat would work, I think. I used only 4 big slices per Stromboli, but sliced lunch meat is very hard to get here and very expensive.
- Spinach.... raw, a whole bunch (maybe a bag in the land of bagged, washed spinach?)
- Cheese.... I used grated cheddar because that's all I had. I think the recipe called for something more fancy like provolone or swiss. The cheddar was yummy.

What you do....
Roll out the pizza dough til it's big and rectangular like if you were going to make a big pizza in a cookie sheet. I always use whole wheat dough. :)
Lay the ham directly on top of the dough - no sauce, no nothing. Again, I just laid 4 pieces down the middle (length wise, so there would be some in every cut slice) but you could easily cover the whole dough with meat.
Then put the spinach on top of the meat.... you don't need to cut it or anything, but it does need to be dry if you washed it. I used probably 5-6 big handfuls and covered the whole surface of the dough. It will be really high and fluffy, but will cook down to nothing.
Layer the cheese on top - how much ever you want to use. I liked the grated cheese because it fell into the spinach nicely.
Then you roll the dough so you have a nice long, fat dough log with layers of meat, cheese and spinach.
I brushed mine with olive oil and sprinkled the top with Parmesan cheese (the kind in the green bottle) and corn meal... adds a yummy touch. :)
It needs to be placed on a greased cookie sheet.... we ate two whole ones; I placed them side by side on the same cookie sheet.
Cook for 25 minutes-ish at 350 til the crust is hard and golden-ish (mine didn't get real golden).

Then just cut in slices. I served it with sweet potato fries and the treasured pomegranate, so we had a really healthy, colorful dinner. :)

1 comment:

  1. Okay, Emily, the stromboli sounds good and looks great. I will give it a try, but what I was really looking forward to were some pictures and stories about Caleb's birthday. C'mon girlfriend, you've got proud grandmas out here! My love anyway ~ Kathy

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