I don’t remember where I saw it, but there was a blog around complaining about how Rachael Ray’s “30-Minute Meals” don’t really take 30 minutes to make. Have you seen the show? How could you think the average person with the average kitchen could be so coordinated and prepared to get everything done in that time period? Anyway. Someone took it upon themselves to pick a recipe and time themselves (and document their process with photos) to see how long it really took to make a 30-minute meal. It ended up taking them something like an hour (which I think was kind of unfair since they had small children interfering, but I suppose that’s reality for some people.)
So my quest tonight was to do the same thing in my calm, child-free house (although the cats do tend to enjoy helping out.) On the menu tonight was Pizza Pockets from the March 2007 issue of Everyday with Rachael Ray. It told me my prep time was 15 minutes and my cook time was 15 minutes. So total, 30 minutes.
Here’s the original recipe:
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons cornmeal
One 13.8-ounce package refrigerated pizza dough
2 hot dogs, preferably nitrite and nitrate-free, quartered lengthwise and chopped into small cubes
1/4 cup jarred tomato or spaghetti sauce
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, preferably fresh
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 450°F. Sprinkle the cornmeal on a large cutting board and roll out the pizza dough to a 10-by-14-inch rectangle. Using a pizza wheel or large knife, cut into four 5-by-7- inch rectangles.
2. Working with 1 sheet at a time, place a rectangle so the long side is facing you. Spoon one quarter of the chopped hot dogs onto the center of the rectangle, leaving a 1-inch border around the filling. Top the hot dogs with 1 tablespoon tomato sauce and 4 tablespoons shredded mozzarella. Moisten the edge of the dough all around and fold the rectangle in half lengthwise over the filling. Pinch the edges together to secure. Set on a parchment-paper-lined baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough rectangles, hot dogs, sauce and cheese. Cut 2 or 3 small vents in the top of each pocket. Bake until browned and bubbling, about 15 minutes. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.
And here’s my take on it:
Start time:
Turned the oven on. It takes seriously 15 minutes to get to 450 so I always have to remember to start the oven heating right away.
Got out my ingredients.
I hate hot dogs. They are scary, scary food-like objects. So, yeah, didn’t use hot dogs. I had some sausage in the freezer and I decided that would be a good swap out. So I added a step here since I needed to cook the sausage before stuffing the pockets with it.
I prepped the baking sheet and rolled out the dough while the sausage was cooking.
Yes, I actually used a rolling pin and tape measure. Didn't really get to the suggested size, but oh well. It still worked.
Assembled pockets. I always make a huge mess...
Shoo'd cat away from the food.
(oh my god, is that his tongue? Good grief... I keep them away from the kitchen when I'm cooking for other people, I promise!)
Put pockets in the oven.
While they baked for 15 minutes I made some green beans and relaxed.
Took them out at just over 13 minutes. Toasty and brown.
Finished product at:
for a total prep time of 34 minutes.
Given that I added probably 5 minutes to cook the sausage, I think I could have easily made this in under 30 if I had used the suggested hot dogs. And I even took time to answer the phone (Adam will be late) and clean up after the cats were done eating.
In conclusion, while some of the 30-minute meal recipes are only 30 minutes if you're as frantic in the kitchen as RR, some of them are totally do-able, even when you don't really follow the recipe. :)
On the more usual blog posting side, these were pretty good. I don't dig the whole "roll 'em in cornmeal" thing, but it wasn't too obnoxious. Another one of the myriad of calzones I have tried out. I still prefer bread dough to pizza dough.
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