Ben's Calzone

Hello on the 27th day of the Vegan Month of Food and the sixth day of my Parks and Recreation theme week! I'm also pretty excited because this is my 100th post! (I would have hit this milestone sooner had I not deleted my first several posts, including those of Vegan MoFo 2010, but ah well...)

Ben's Calzone

In "The Comeback Kid" (season 4, episode 11), Ben, having resigned from his job as assistant city manager, has been keeping himself occupied by shooting a (very short) claymation video and learning to make calzones. (Leslie and the rest of the parks department have been planning a comeback for her city council campaign, but when everything goes wrong, she decides to hire Ben as her campaign manager.)

Chris: So, Ben, why calzones?

Ben: Glad you asked, Chris. You know, there's fast-food hamburgers, there's fast-food Mexican, there's fast-food Chinese, blah, blah, blah. Have you ever wondered why there isn't a fast-food option for Italian food?

Chris: What about pizza?

Ben: "Pizza? Never heard of it!" That's what people will be saying in 20 years because pizza is old news, Chris. Pizza is your grandfather's calzone.

Chris: I never thought of it that way.

Ben: What I'm talking about is a portable, delicious meal that is its own container. It's a whole new spin on Italian fast, casual dining.

Chris: Amazing!

Ben: Now, you of all people will like this: I'm going to use low-fat ingredients.

Chris: Game-changer!

Ben: And I will call my new Italian fast casual eatery the Low-Cal Calzone Zone.

Chris: That idea is literally the greatest idea I have ever heard in my life.

Chris (to camera): That idea is terrible.

Ingredients:

(crust)

--1 Bob's Red Mill 16 oz. package Gluten Free Pizza Crust mix

--2 T flaxseed meal + 6 T water (replaces the 2 eggs)

--1 1/2 cups warm water

--2 T olive oil

--yeast packet (included in the pizza crust package)

(toppings)

--tomato sauce

--shredded Daiya (both mozzarella and cheddar)
--vegan pepperoni slices (I used Lightlife's Smart Deli Pepperoni)

Directions:

(Preheat oven to 425°F.) Combine yeast and water in a large bowl; let stand a few minutes. Add the flaxseed meal and olive oil, stir. Add the pizza crust mix; stir until combined. Split dough in half, leave in bowl, covered for 20 minutes so it can rise. To make two calzones, take one of the doughs, split it in half, and spread out two round crusts on the greased baking tray. Bake for 7 minutes without toppings. (Store second unused dough, wrapped in plastic wrap, in the fridge.) Remove from oven, add tomato sauce to one half of each crust, then Daiya and vegan pepperoni on top.* Fold the empty half over to cover the toppings. Crimp the edges closed with a fork (if possible; wasn't for me, oops!). Add a bit of olive oil atop the calzones and make a few small cuts in the top, then bake for 9 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool; the calzones will be much hotter than a pizza. Serve and enjoy!

*To use up some leftovers, I (over)filled one of the calzones with some chopped yellow onion and Boca chick'n instead of pepperoni.

This was my first time making calzones, and while they were messy (and I was unable to get them fully closed), they were still delicious. I think it would be fun to experiment with different fillings (the two versions I made were both great), but all in all, I'm more of a pizza person. Sorry, Ben! 

Bonus quotes from the episode:

Leslie (to her former campaign managers): I just had a big meeting with my new advisory board, and they are brilliant and amazing. They're real killers.

Andy (in background): Leslie? I tried to make ramen in the coffee pot, and I broke everything.

Leslie: Thank you, Andy; I'll be right in.

In other vegan news, today is Hug a Vegan Day! So here's a big hug for all my vegan readers and fellow bloggers!

Mystery, however, is rather skeptical of all this hugging going on...

Peace. :)

Chris' Portobello Mushrooms

Hello on the 25th day of the Vegan Month of Food, and the fourth day of my Parks and Recreation theme week! (This post also fits in with the Work With it Wednesday theme, since I was a bit skeptical of portobello mushrooms and haven't been that much of an asparagus fan.)

Chris' Portobello Mushrooms

In "Indianapolis," (season 3, episode 6), Leslie and Ron are traveling to the city to receive a commendation award, but all Ron cares about is eating at his favorite steakhouse. When they arrive, however, they discover that it has been shut down due to a health code violation. Chris, who now lives in Indianapolis, offers to "fire up the grill" at his place. While preparing the meal, Chris offers some salad to Ron. (Hehehe, look at me, I finally figured out how to embed a video in a post!)

Chris: Ron, would you like some salad?

Ron: (chuckles) Since I am not a rabbit, no, I do not.

Chris: Try it, salad's good for you. (serves him some salad)

Ron: You got it. (Chris leaves to work on the rest of the meal, Ron dumps his salad back into the main serving bowl) Mmmm, delicious!

Later, when Ron goes out to the grill to check on the steaks, he discovers that Chris isn't actually cooking steak... 

Ron: Ahhhh!!!!

Leslie: Ron?

Ron: What in the devil's name is this?!

Chris: Portobello mushrooms.

Ron: Where's the steak?

Chris: Oh, there's no steak. That's a healthier option. It's organically grown.

Ron: Oh... (gets unsteady)

Leslie: Ron, are you OK? Woah, woah, woah, OK. (helps Ron into a chair) (to Chris) Can you get us a cold compress or something?

Ingredients for Chris' meal:

--2 organic portobello mushrooms

--olive oil

--salt

--pepper

--asparagus

--rosemary

--garlic salt

--red and orange peppers

--mixed greens

Pre-heat oven to 400°F, cover a baking tray with a sheet of aluminum foil. Clean, de-stem, and de-gill the portobello mushrooms. Brush olive oil and sprinkle salt and pepper on both sides, set bottom-up on the tray. Trim the asparagus, lay them out in a baking dish. Drizzle olive oil atop, and sprinkle on some rosemary, garlic salt, salt, and pepper. Bake both the mushrooms and the asparagus for 10 minutes. Flip the mushrooms, add sliced peppers and a bit more garlic salt to the asparagus and stir. Return mushrooms and the asparagus dish to the oven to bake for another 10 minutes. Prepare a salad using the mixed greens. After removing the mushrooms, allow them to sit for a bit on a folded paper towel to soak up excess oil. Serve with the asparagus dish and the salad.

The portobello mushrooms turned out better than I expected. They weren't as oily as I'd feared they'd be and they were nice and soft on the inside. The texture of mushrooms has always seemed weird to me, but it really wasn't too bad. The asparagus dish was alright; I think I used too much olive oil, so maybe next time I make it, it'll be better. The salad, being just mixed greens, was plain; I don't really like dressings, so I ended up just chopping up some of the mushroom and asparagus and peppers to mix them in with the greens, and combining everything together in one dish worked out nicely.

But wait, there's more! Before making this dinner, I prepared a quick appetizer...

The Snakehole Lounge's Pigs in a Blanket

Also in this episode, April and Andy go out together to the Snakehole Lounge, a Pawnee bar. Andy is embarrassed that he doesn't have money to buy drinks, so April suggests that they see how much free stuff they can get throughout the night. At one point, she comes back with a whole tray of pigs in a blanket.

April: I got this from a waiter. I told him I had a pork deficiency.

Andy: Sweet! Pigs in a blanket! I always wondered why they called them that...

Ingredients:

--4 Lightlife Smart Dogs

--1 package vegan crescent rolls

Preheat oven to 350°F. Unroll the rolls and slice the smart dogs in half. Roll up one half smart dog in each roll. Place on greased baking tray. Bake for 10 minutes. Serve & enjoy!

Apart from getting a bit burnt on the bottom, these "pork-deficient" (vegan) pigs in blankets turned out great, very delicious for being so easy to make. I only had two of them, so I'm looking forward to finishing off the rest in the next couple days; yum!

Bonus quotes from the episode:

April: Hey, uh, six beers for, uh, table twelve.

Woman behind bar: Do you work here?

April: Yeah, my dad owns this place. I'm Janet, Janet Snakehole.

Here's a picture of Mystery curled up, all snuggly on the couch.

Peace. :)