Wednesday: Strombolarama!

Today's plan was to make stromboli.  Unfortunately, I didn't plan things out beforehand, and so the end result came out kind of ugly.  That's my own fault, and I'll know better next time.  Anyway, here's the photoshoot:

I picked up some ingredients at WF, including a bag of pizza dough.  I could have made my own, but that would have moved this plan into the weekend. Whole foods clearly uses magic to ensure that the dough weighs exactly as much as the side you're looking at says it is.

I wanted to put mushrooms in the stromboli, to add a plausible claim of it being healthy.  I sauteed them in butter to get as much of the moisture out as possible.

I let the dough rise for about an hour, and then "declared 'fuck you' on the pizza dough." I didn't notice until I was looking through the pictures that I had accidentally made an Italian flag.  If you notice the thin spot towards the bottom of the image, you can see the problem that came later.

First layer: provolone, pepperoni, prosciutto.

Second layer: the mushrooms (I forgot to take a picture, apparently).

Third layer: meatballs.  I thought I could squeeze those three in, but ended up just chopping them up and sneaking them in among the others.

Hrm...I apparently didn't take a picture of the final version before cooking. I had originally wanted to cook it in my cast iron pan, but it wasn't going to fit.  Instead, I poured some olive oil in my roasting pan, added the stromboli, rubbed more oil over the top, and then sprinkled some of my chunky sea salt on top.  I baked it at 400 for 20-25 minutes, and it came out like this:

The thin spot in the dough had ruptured, spilling out the meatballs. :(

I wasn't sure how to get it out of the pan, but it turns out that just cramming the cutting board under the stromboli is a valid way to remove things from a roasting pan. A little bit of work with the electric knife, and:

The cross section clearly shows the mistakes.  I should have put the meatballs in first, so they'd be in the center of the stromboli, then a wrapping of dough, then the cheese and other meats would have formed a full ring, then a layer of dough again, and the layer of mushrooms on the top.  Instead, it kind of segregated more than I'd thought.  That's the problem with working down through the stack of ingredients instead of planning it out.

I heated some of the leftover sauce for dipping, as I'd not put much sauce inside the stromboli.  Had I made it the sane way, I could have put in a decent amount of sauce, as it would have been centered and even if it made the inner dough layer soggy, it wouldn't have compromised the structural integrity as much as it did on this one.

Still, even though it's ugly, it was still delicious.  I also now have a good idea what I'm eating for the rest of the week. :)