What is in Your Pocket?

You can't go wrong with this fun Friday night family meal.  Skip ordering the pizza and pack the family in the kitchen for a fun family cooking night making Calzones.  For those who are not familiar with Calzones, they're an oven-baked, folded pizza dough filled with your favorite pizza toppings or just about any fun "hot pocket" type of ingredients you can put inside a pocket pizza. 


We cheat and buy our pizza dough pre-made from the local pizza shop for $1.00 each.  Here's a tip, if you are going to buy it from your pizza shop, please keep it refrigerated until you're ready to roll out the dough.

We made three different Calzones; 

1) Ham & Cheddar Cheese
2) Peppers, Onions, Mushrooms, Garlic (sauteed) & Mozzarella Cheese
3) Italian Chicken, Roasted Red Pepper (homemade) & Mozzarella Cheese. 



Roll out your pizza dough, fill your shell, pull lid over your filling then crimp ends using a fork--place on lightly oiled baking pan. 

 Cut three small slices into the top of each clazone prior to baking in the oven at 400 degrees for 12- 15 minutes. 

Let your calzone (s) sit for about 5 minutes after you remove them from the oven--slice and enjoy!

We served our calzones with a marinara dipping sauce and a few cold Michelob ULTRA Beers. 

Yes, our calzones are inside a pizza box.  When you buy your pre-made dough from the pizza shop, they pack the wrapped dough inside a pizza box for transport.  We keep the box and reuse it to serve and store our calzones--easy clean up! 

We were not compensated by Michelob for this post. 

This is a "stick-up"...

Mark LOVES food-on-a-stick, so this past week I agreed to eat an entire meal on a stick, but it had to include steak. We picked up a buy one, get one free steak from our local Acme Market then built our entire meal around the beef using vegetables we had in our house and a few items from our garden.

We used; mushrooms, pre-boiled potatoes, onions, we also added in peppers and grape tomatoes from (The Kordes Fresh Garden).  

We seasoned each meal with salt and pepper and grilled them on medium heat for 4 minutes, then turned them for another 3 minutes.  

 Fast!
 Easy! 
Oh, So Good!

We made a total of 22 sticks to feed 4 four of us. We had plenty of leftovers.

We served this meal with a Spicy BBQ Sauce. 

We were not compensated by Acme Markets for this post.

No Food Stylist Here...

Just fresh veggies from our garden and a few items from our local Acme supermarket.

Tomato / cucumber / basil salad with grilled Italian bread, sliced mozzarella cheese and oil / balsamic vinegar dip.

 

Grilled smoked sausage with grilled eggplant and zucchini. 











A quick and easy Friday night dinner sitting poolside with a refreshment.

Cajun Spiced Shrimp Tacos

  Cilantro / Lime Slaw 

 

        Cajun Shrimp pan fried to perfection.

  The Finished Product --

  A Cajun Shrimp Taco with Cilantro, Lime Slaw topped with fresh cilantro and don't forget the cocktail: a Michelob Ultra beer! 

What Happens When South Philly Comes to South Jersey

  You get a Smoked Italian Pork Sandwich

Smoked Italian Pork Sandwich

The perfect weekend sandwich for family meals or for a large crowd.

Season the pork loin with mustard, steakhouse seasoning, salt, pepper and garlic then place in a slow cooker with apple wood for approximately 2.5 hours on 250 degrees.

Seasoned Pork Loin

Mustard is your base

  Prepped and ready for the smoker.

Pork Loin in the Smoker

After your pork loin is cooked, let it rest for about 30 minutes, then slice it for sandwiches.  Saute spinach in olive oil and garlic then add provolone cheese and roasted red peppers on a GOOD hoagie roll.  I prefer round rolls for this sandwich.  We topped on this meal with two ICE cold beers.

Here Fishy, Fishy, Fishy

Grilled Salmon w/ Ribs & Spring Mix

I HATE Salmon but Mark loves it, so here's his Grilled Lemon / Garlic Salmon served on a Spring mix with a side of Mexican Style Pork Ribs. Yes, Mexican Style Grilled Pork Ribs.

Ribs with dry rub

We used a dry (Mexican Style) rub for the ribs and grilled them on low heat for about 2 hours.


The Dry Rub:
Garlic
Cumin
Salt
Pepper
Chili Powder
Chipotle Seasoning
Lime

Yes, we did have a Margarita with our Mexican Style Ribs!