Stromboli: The Savory and the Sweet

It is finally feeling like fall in our little neck of the woods.  I love fall.  I also love baking in the fall.  Today was begging for a little baking.  And Frank and I both answered the call.  He made a B&G breakfast pizza (aka Biscuits and Gravy Pizza) that we had for brunch - it was awesome.  It will be posted later on the Ladies of Fiat blog.  I answered with stromboli.  And I've been a little out of the blogging world so I spaced taking pictures until I pulled out the sweet stromboli and it looked and smelled delicious!

I started out this morning thinking of just making a regular stromboli.  My mom has a great one she's made in the bread machine a few times.  But when I put in her flash drive of recipes, the only one she'd added was not HER recipe - so disappointing!!  Then I turned to pinterest.  Everything seemed to be pizza-ish and that wasn't what I was looking for.  There was one, however that was a Philly Cheese Steak Stromboli.  This one seemed just right for today.

Next, I turned to my favorite recipes on my All Recipes app.  I love All Recipes!

Here's what I did:

I followed the Simple Whole Wheat Bread Recipe pretty exactly (with the exception of which flour to add when - I halved it at the beginning and then in the additions).  It's pretty yummy.

Bread Recipe:
3 cups warm water (110 degrees F)
1 TBS active dry yeast (2 .25 ounce packages)
1/3 cup honey (I used agave syrup)
5 cups bread flour
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1/3 cup honey (again, agave)
1 TBS salt
3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Directions:
1. In a large bowl, mix warm water, yeast and 1/3 c honey.  Add 5 cups of flour and stir to combine.  Let sit for 30 minutes or until big and bubbly.
2. Mix in 3 TBS melted butter, 1/3 c honey and salt.  Stir in 2 cups flour.  Kneed the dough adding flour as needed until just pulling away from the counter, but still sticky to touch (this may take extra 2-4 cups of flour - mine took about 3).
Place in a greased bowl, turning once to coat the surface of the dough.  Cover with a dish towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled.

WHILE the dough is doubling, make your fillings.  We made 2 Philly Cheese Steak fillings and 1 Apple Acorn Squash filling.

Philly Cheese Steak Filling:
3 -4 peppers (I used 2 Cubanelle, 2 Green)
2 small onions (or 1 large)
1 package of mushrooms, peeled and cubed
2 packages of roast beef deli meet ( a little less than one pound)
1/2 cup au jus or beef broth
Salt
Pepper
Mozzarella

Directions:
1. Dice peppers, onions and mushrooms (keep separate).
2. Saute peppers for 5-8 minutes.  Add onions for another 5 minutes.  Add mushrooms until all look tender.
3. Dice up roast beef and add to skillet.  Add a little Au Jus to moisten the mixture - not too much as it'll make your sandwich soggy.
4.  Season with salt and pepper and let chill on low while you wait for the dough to rise.

Apple and Acorn Squash Filling:
(adapted from this All Recipes recipe)
1 acorn squash (preppared)
2 apples, cored and sliced
4 tablespoons of butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

Directions:
1. Prepare and peel your acorn squash.  Apparently the All Recipe's recipe has a fabulous strategy.  I just poked some holes in it and stuck it in the stove the other night, let it cool a bit.  I cut it in half, took out the seeds and got out the yummy.
2. In a skillet, mix all the ingredients until the butter and sugar have had a chance to melt and goo all yummy like.

BACK to the bread:
3. Punch down the dough and divide into 3 loaves.  Grease 2 cookie sheets for baking.
4. Roll out each loaf into a rectangle.
5.  Fill dough
- For the savory stromboli, I spread the meat mixture all over the dough, leaving about 1 inch all around.
Then I sprinkled cheese over all of it.  I rolled it up, pinching in the ends and middle.  Be careful about the middle one, I didn't get the first one very well and I had some exploding out the side.
put the crease on the bottom of the pan and cut steam vents on the top of the stromboli.
- For the sweet stromboli, I left a middle bottom and cut about 1 inch by 2-3 inch strips on each side of the loaf.  We stuffed the apple mixture in the middle and then braided it all up.  (Again, making sure the ends are tucked in well.
6. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 25-30 minutes until lightly browned.

The Apple Acorn was begging for a little more sweet so I mixed up a powered sugar glaze (about 1/3 cup powdered sugar, 1/4 tsp vanilla and a little bit of milk - just enough to make it runny.  After I took the apple stromboli out, I drizzled the glaze on the top.  YUMMO!!

An Egg in a Nest

I was a military kid.  One of those weird ones, though. I only moved once growing up.  I've moved many more times than that since college.  I didn't, however, get to escape my father being gone for long periods of time.  Especially in the summers.  And while my dad was off training soldiers, we spent a lot of time with my grandmother and aunts.

Those summers had some magic in them.  For two summers, we rented out a little condo on the shore at Destin, Florida.  We swam every morning and ate fish almost every night.  There's still this one albacore sandwich that has become the stuff of legend.  I remember how it tasted - it was SO good!! The afternoons and evenings were filled with fun and walks on the beach, games of cards and the family time of lore. 

One evening on the shore.  See our little brown selves?

Our lunches where easy ones but yummy ones.  BLT sandwiches.  And Eggs in a Nest.  I made one yesterday.  It took me back to those perfect summer days.  Whenever we left, my grandmother always said that the waves were saying, "Come Back!  Come Back!" And even though I've left that little nest and we are starting one of our own, those days bring back many smiles.

Baptism and John Wayne

My best friends and I have a strong devotion to St. Therese.  She says in her memoir that she doesn't want to be an elegant rose or a lily.  She just wants to be a little daisy at God's feet and make him smile.  When we dedicated our little blue house to her in 2004, we became the Daisy Girls.  That means we get to have Daisy Babies too - it's pretty sweet!  I got to meet the newest little Daisy baby on Saturday.  Her name is Margaret Therese . . . Greta.  She is beautiful!!

She came on Friday, came home on Saturday and became Catholic yesterday.  I don't know if her day today is going to live it up.  With the baptism so close, we friends rallied together a little reception feast.  Greta's godfather was SURE he could find this "awesome coffee cake recipe" that they'd made a long time ago.  So we did the protein.  Which was great because I have this "awesome egg casserole recipe!"

I don't know how John Wayne got attributed to this casserole (it's awesome, he's awesome so we're all good?).  I also am not sure why it's called a "cheese casserole" (but I did only put in less than half the cheese it called for).  Whatever it's called, it's yummy.  And gone - no breakfast leftovers (or pictures - use your imagination!).  Having no leftovers makes me a little sad.  We do have Southern Grits Casserole left - I'll blog that recipe later.  Right now, it's the Duke's turn!