Pepperoni, cheesy dipping bread

My oldest son at home is in Classical Conversations Challenge III classes, and today is their end of semester Christmas lunch.   His class was to do “bread.”    Well who doesn’t love bread?  I remembered seeing some pepperoni pizza bread made out of frozen bread or pizza dough, but once again we were home.   We live out, so I needed to make something from our stock.    I had a delicious pepperoni bread recipe from year’s back that I decided to tweak to the pepperoni, cheesy wreath bread that I made for today.   Throw in some marinara in the middle for dipping, and voila!  It’s yummy.   It takes little over an hour start to finish for this bread if you let the dough rise in a warm oven.    I doubled the recipe so that we could have a trial batch for dinner last night.  Winner, winner, pepperoni for dinner!

Ingredients for bread:

• 1 cup warm water
• 1 T. active dry yeast
• 1 T.  honey
• 4 T. olive oil
• sprinkle a bit of Italian Seasoning (parsley, oregano, basil if I’m out)
• 1 t. salt
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour  (I used to make this with freshly ground wheat, but I haven’t got back into the habit of that yet.)
• 1 cup pepperoni
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
• 1 1/2 cups of shredded mozzarella or cheddar (I had cheddar on hand.)

I proofed the yeast in my large 4 cup measuring cup by mixing the water, yeast and honey.  Let it sit for a few minutes.

While that is proofing, I mix the dry ingredients (flour, salt & Italian seasoning) in my Kitchen aid bowl (any large bowl would do.)  Then I added the yeast mixture into the large bowl after it’s nice and active looking.  Next add the olive oil.

I mixed in my Kitchen Aid with dough mixer.  You could use a large spoon.   Just be sure it’s mixed well, then knead (by hand or machine).  Next place it in a large bowl that’s been greased with olive oil.

Let it nicely rise for about 20 minutes. I used the “bread proof” option in my oven.  Most of my baking life, I didn’t have that ability, and just let rise on top of the stove while the oven is preheating.

While it was rising I cut up probably a cup’s worth of pepperoni.   I added the cheeses to the pepperoni.    Next I punched down the dough, then mixed in probably about 3/4 of the pepperoni and cheese mixture.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Next, I greased a bundt pan and shaped the dough in the pan evenly to rise.   I used my kitchen scissors to cut some slits on top to make it easy to grab pieces off of later.  I let it rest about 10-15 minutes then placed in the oven.   Bake for 15 minutes, then add the rest of the cheesy pepperoni goodness to the top of the bread.   Bake another 15 minutes.

Pull out of oven, and in about 5-10 minutes turn over your bundt pan onto a plate.  Place a small bowl with marina in the center.   We ate it like an appetizer, but with a salad it would make a nice meal.  Tear off bread, and dip into the bowl.   Sooooo good!    Enjoy the dish and the holidays!

 

Movie Night – Copycat’s Applebee’s Spinach Dip

Tonight for our family movie night we’re going to rent Beowulf for the older group since we finished the book last week and we’re still deciding on what the younger family movie will be.  We decided to make it an appetizer night with homemade crab dip, and Applebee’s spinach dip and lots of veggies and crackers.  Here’s the recipe I found on the copycat sight for the spinach dip.  It looks yummy.  Of course for my family, I will double this recipe.  I’ll use a larger pan to bake it in.  I’ll post a picture tonight.

Applebee’s Hot Artichoke & Spinach Dip Recipe

        1 (10 ounce) box frozen chopped Spinach, thawed 

1 (14 ounce) can Artichoke Hearts, drained and roughly chopped
1 cup shredded Parmesan-Romano Cheese mix
1/2 cup shredded Mozzarella Cheese
10 ounces prepared alfredo sauce
1 teaspoon minced garlic
4 ounces softened cream cheese
Pepper (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine ingredients thoroughly in a bowl and spread mixture into a small baking dish (I used an 8″ X 8″ dish).
3. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until cheeses are bubbling and melted.
4. Serve with chips or bread and enjoy.

 

December 31, 2010

Last day of the year 2010.  I cannot believe it.  It’s been a busy day and the year passed truly in a blink.

My husband and I ate out for brunch.  We go out twice a month on grocery shopping day and this was it.  Dinner was snacky foods:  pizza, chicken nuggets, sausage balls and chips.  Makes it like a party for the kiddos.  Made 3 x the sausage balls recipe today because of Rusty’s work party and the peanut butter buckeyes.  Enjoy :D!!

Sausage Balls

• 1 tube sausage
• 2 refrigerated crescent rolls
• 1 block of cream cheese

Cook the sausage in a pan then add the cream cheese.  Refrigerate for a bit.  Then unroll the crescent rolls and each triangle into thirds.  Put a teaspoon into each crescent roll.  Bake 375 for ~10 minutes.

Buckeyes

• 1 1/2 c peanut butter
• 1 c butter, softened
• 6 cups powdered sugar
• 1/2 t vanilla
• 4 cups milk chocolate chips

Put the peanut butter, butter, powdered sugar and vanilla together.  Use a wooden spoon to stir together well until you can form small teaspoon size balls.  Place on wax paper on a cookie sheet and place in the freezer for 15-20 minutes.  (You can put toothpicks into the balls before you freeze to make easier to handle in the chocolate but we used our small s’mores skewer instead).  Next, heat chocolate chips in double boiler. Dip the balls into the chocolate.   Place chocolate balls on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper and put into freezer for 2 hours.  Voila – yumminess.