Pizza pockets

A very important part of my job as a nanny in the United states of America is making sure that kids have enough to eat. And I do not just feed them any food, I want them to eat as healthy as they can. Because everybody knows how important proper nutrition is, especially when a person is still growing. And since they all go to school, I have to pack them lunches daily, and I figured it would be much easier if I could prepare some food in advance, freeze it and heat it up in the morning, just before they go to school.

So, one day, I decided to look for some recipes that are both healthy and allow the prepared food to be frozen and reheated. I discovered an amazing recipe for a dish, called pizza pockets, and they are so good that I eat them more often than the kids do!

This is the final result in all its deliciousness.

With this amount of ingredients, you will make from forty to fifty pizza pockets, which might seem a lot, but they are so good that they will disappear very soon. The process of making these pizza pockets takes quite some time, but it is totally worth it. It took me about three hours to finish, not including cleaning and putting together all the ingredients. But trust me, once you will bite into one of these treats, all the sweat and possible cursing will pay off.

You will use a lot of bowls and utensils during the preparation of pizza pockets. Do not say I did not warn you!

Ingredients

For the pizza dough:

• One cup of warm water (not hot, not cold - warm)
• Six cups of all purpose flour
• One tablespoon of olive oil
• One tablespoon of salt
• Two tablespoons of sugar
• Two tablespoons of dry yeast

For the filling:

You can use different ingredients that I did in this recipe for the filling. It all depends on what you like. There is also a vegetarian option - do not use the meat (duh! ) and increase the amount of vegetables used.

• Two cups of tomato sauce
• 1/2 lb of mozzarella or cheddar cheese (or a mix of both)
• Four cups of chopped tomatoes (try using sun dried tomatoes), mushrooms, olives and peppers
• Ten ounces of spinach
• 1 lb of turkey or beef sausage

Preparation

The most annoying and time consuming part of making the pizza pockets is definitely making the pizza dough. I would recommend using the electric mixer, because mixing that dough with your hands is a messy hassle, and you will get tired pretty fast.

In a medium bowl, mix together one cup of warm water and yeast, then add sugar. After mixing, the liquid will start foaming. That is completely normal, and you should let it foam for three minutes. Then, you can add one tablespoon of salt, one tablespoon of olive oil and one and a half cups of water. The water does not need to be warm this time. After adding the water, mix again.

Add all the flour. It might seem a lot, and it will take a while to mix into a smooth texture, but that is what will make the dough elastic and not too sticky. When mixing, you will occasionally have to push the dough back to the bottom of the bowl. The dough is ready when it starts coming off the bottom of the bowl. If you feel like the dough is too sticky, you can add some flour.

Once the dough starts coming off the bottom of the bowl, let it mix for three more minutes. When the dough is mixing, take a large bowl and spread olive oil in it, then put the dough in there. Cover the bowl and place it in a warm spot for fifty minutes. This will allow the dough to rise, and do not be surprised if you see that the dough is almost triple the size it was before that. Knead the dough quickly with your hands, then cover again and put in the refrigerator for an hour. During that time, you can prepare the filling for the pizza pockets.

This is how the pizza dough should look like after rising.

First, dice the meat and brown it over the medium heat. Add tomato sauce, make sure everything is well mixed, and then take it off from the stove top and let it cool down. In the meantime, you can grate the cheese, or you can just buy packs of cheese that is already grated. Saves time and it costs about the same.

Put a few tablespoons of water into a medium microwaveable bowl, add spinach and microwave for one minute on a high setting. Stir and repeat the process for another minute. Then, mix the steamed spinach into a mix of meat and tomato sauce that you previously made.

The microwaved spinach will look pretty gross, but you do not need to worry - it is supposed to look like that!

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Then, take the pizza dough out of the refrigerator. Separate it into four equal parts, each part should be the size of your hand. Flour the surface, then roll the first part of the dough out with a rolling pin. This can take a while because the dough is elastic and will shrink after every roll. Here comes the tricky part - make sure the rolled dough Is not too thick and not too thin. If it is too thick, it will not bake well, and if it is too thin, the filling will fall out.

Trying to roll out the pizza dough and taking a picture of it at the same time was pretty tricky. But hey, I made it!

If you have a dumpling maker, it will make your job of making the pizza pockets much easier. If you do not have it, you will have to improvise a bit, but it is doable. Since I used the dumpling maker, I will describe that process. Cut out the circles with the bottom of the dumpling maker and put them onto the parchment paper so they do not stick to the surface. Once you use all four parts of the dough, you can start putting the filling into the pizza pockets.

Lay the dough circles on the top of the dumpling maker. Fill with two tablespoons of the filling that you made, add two tablespoons of cheese, and press the dumpling maker together. You might notice some sauce, dripping out of the edges, but that is completely normal, just a little messy.

Put all the pizza pockets on a parchment paper lined baking tray. Then, whisk an egg in a small bowl and brush the top of the pizza pockets with it. This will make them crunchy and golden brown and, at the same time, it will prevent them from cracking. Bake for twenty minutes. Then, put the pizza pockets on the wire rack and let them cool down.

Cooling down the pizza pockets on a wire rack.

Some suggestions

When the pizza pockets are cooled down, you have to parchment - freeze them. That means you put them into the refrigerator on a wire rack, which will prevent them from sticking together once you freeze them. Parchment freeze them for about forty minutes, then take them out of the refrigerator, put them in a large zip lock bag, write a date on the bag and freeze.

When you want to eat them, just put them into the microwave. Use the ‘defrost’ setting first and then heat them up for about two minutes. Or you can put the amount you want to eat the next day, from the freezer into the refrigerator, so they will be already defrosted and you will just have to heat them up.

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