Yes! Two articles within the same week! I’M BACK, BABY! I’ve got a few lined up, so start checking the site more often, we’re gonna rock out with our socks out.
So being the avid Trader Joe’s shopper that I am, I love going food shopping simply because of the fact that I experiment with a lot of the food that I get. I really do make an effort to try new things all the time and have had mostly positive consequences from doing so. But sine I’m still only a mere level four chili chef, I’ve got to cook more and get some experience under my belt. I cooked these puppies a while ago, I just went through my blog abadonment for so long that I forgot to get to posting this experience. We can thank my stumble addiction (anyone that stumbles can understand that link) for this idea.
Here are the ingredients in a very scattered order:
Pizza dough (pre-made at Trade Joe's), mozzarella cheese, flour, salami, pepperoni, garlic powder, olive oil, onion flakes, sea salt, crushed up malgueta peppers, and tomato sauce
The first thing that needs to be done is loosen up the dough. Although I had some fun throwing the dough up in the air, it definitely made a mess because I had put some flour on it to keep it from sticking to everything (luckily, I did this out in my hallway so I wouldn’t have to clean my kitchen floor…but don’t tell my landlord or imma cut you). After it warms up and loosens up, I separated the giant glob into smaller bite size balls of dough.
Before I started stuffing each ball, I took the garlic powder, sea salt, onion flakes, and the malagueta pepper and combined them together to create a unique seasoning for the pizza bites. Additionally, I chopped up the cheese into small pieces as well as the salami and pepperoni. Each ball was then stuffed with several pieces of cheese, meat, and the seasoning. I also made sure that I put olive oil all over each ball and pinched them all closed so that I could avoid making a complete melted mess all over my pan. I also put some seasoning on top for some extra flavor. Make sure that if you decide to make some of these you spread out the balls (hahaha, womp) so they all have space to expand. There’s nothing worse than balls being stuck together…yep, that’s true.
One of several batches
Oh yeah, by now you should be totally preheated, so hopefully you’re not making these as you’re reading this article. Haha, I know that at least one person will do it. Anyway, pump your oven up to 400 degrees and when you’re done with however many batches you’re making (by the way, you can freeze these guys, I did it with at least one batch and they tasted fine when I cooked them later) pop them in the oven. Then wait for 20 minutes and wait for the magic:
5 minutes in with no flash
10 minutes in with too much flash
20 minutes in with perfect light exposure
Okay, so the cheese ’sploded out of a few of them, but they still look yummy! While they cool, make sure you heat up some tomato sauce for dipping purposes. Although mine turned out good, they could have been better. Here’s a huge suggestion for any of you that want to make these: make sure you put a LOT of cheese in each ball, seriously, overload them. Also, make sure that you have enough dough so that they don’t explode like mine did. The main problem is that they weren’t gooey, just cheesy. Even so, these turned out to be pretty good and would serve perfectly as finger food for guests before cooking them some of your “Evan-Made Chili“. Next time I’ll just make a pizza though, I have a feeling that would turn out awesome…
