One of our favorite meals is when we have grilled sandwiches for dinner. When we were young, our Grandfather took us to a little restaurant for lunch with the best grilled-cheese sandwiches. Unfortunately, it is no longer open, and we have tried to replicate it unsuccessfully. It had something to do with the combination of sourdough bread and the cheese that they used. We have been working on a bread recipe, but that will be for a later post. While searching for an alternative to sandwich night, I stumbled upon Stromboli. I had never heard of such a thing, but the pictures looked promising. Could Stromboli for picky eaters be our new favorite dinner?
Preparing the Dough
After reading the directions, I figured this was something that we could tackle. In the ingredient list, it called for prepackaged pizza dough. But we have our own recipe: Reliable Pizza Dough, which we have been working on for ages. Pizza dough can be more challenging than all of those blog titles imply!
After our dough was ready, we had some debate. Do we spread this out into one large rectangle and put on the fillings? The problem, of course, was mustard. And yellow peppers. And turkey. All of these were listed in the recipe that we were using. And we don’t like any of them, but we knew Dad would want something beyond just cheese.
So, we decided that we would experiment with individual Stromboli rolls to appease us picky eaters. It would be easier to roll out a smaller disk anyway.
Personalizing Stromboli
Our dough recipe allows us to make either 8 small portions or 2 large. So we used the same proportions for our Stromboli. We took out all sorts of toppings and we each got to design our rolls to our liking.
Our first attempt was for Dad, and we might have slightly overstuffed it. Then we were left with the question of whether to roll it lengthwise or width-wise. We were nervous either way that we would end up with a bunch of dough on the ends that would be tasteless.
As we did not like most of the suggested ingredients, our rolls had less in them. We rolled some one way, and some the other to see which methods were more successful.
Thinking that these may blow up in the oven, we made little cuts on the top of the dough. This was not as easy as we had thought. We intended to write our initials on them so we knew which one belonged to whom. But the dough just stretched and we could not actually slice with any clarity.
Since the directions were for a full-sized Stromboli, we were not sure of the exact timing. We started with 20 minutes and kept our eye on them. They ended up needing about 23 minutes total.
As we had anticipated, some of the rolls burst open and leaked cheese.
Although they were very hot, we removed them off of the cookie sheet right away, as we could see some of the oils on the bottom that were sure to make the dough soggy if we left them to cool there.
One concern was whether the inside dough would be fully cooked, but as we cut them open, our fears were relieved. It turned out that both ways of rolling worked just fine.
Would We Make Stromboli Again?
Our conversation at dinner turned to all of the different options that we would put into them next time. Dad wanted pizza sauce, we wanted stronger tasting cheese and Mom wanted more garlic. This just means more experimenting in the future for all of us picky eaters.
Picky Eater Stromboli
Stromboli for picky eaters is an easy way to make everyone happy at dinner! With so many combinations to try, you’ll surely find one for even your pickiest of eaters.
Ingredients
- 1 Batch of Reliable Pizza Dough* or 1 Tube Refrigerated Pizza Dough
Any Combination of Following Ingredients:
- 3/4 Cup Jarred Marinara Sauce
- 8 Slices Cheese: Muenster, Cheddar, Swiss, or Your Favorite Kind
- 1/4 Pound Thinly sliced Meat: Pepperoni, Salami, Ham or Turkey
- 1/2 Cup Banana Pepper Rings
- 1/2 Cup Kalamata Olives
- 1 Teaspoon Mustard
- Anything Else You Can Think Of!
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease a cookie sheet, or use silicone mat.
- Cut your dough into 8 equal parts.
- Using a rolling pin or your hands, roll your dough to a rough 8 x 3 inch rectangle.
- Layer on the toppings of your choosing. Make sure to leave some room on the edges so they are able to roll up.
- Whatever side seems to make the most sense, roll up and pinch the seam to seal.
- Place the roll on your baking sheet, seam side down, and cut shallow cuts in the top of the Stromboli to let steam escape.
- Bake until golden, about 20 to 25 minutes. Slice and serve.
Hjohn
Thursday 29th of February 2024
That Stromboli is making me hungry 😂
2 Kids Trying 2 Cook
Thursday 29th of February 2024
It is worth a try!