Friday, July 30, 2010

Friday Lunchbox #1

In an effort to inspire myself a little more when making my daughter's school lunches, thus begins "Friday Lunchbox".  Hope you feel inspired too!

Here is today's...


Morning Tea - fresh strawberries, stove popped popcorn (gotta love those Nude Food Movers containers)
Lunch - Stromboli and banana (yes those are butterfly and flower stickers on that banana, Miss 5 gets all excited when she finds those)
Drink - Water (not pictured)

The stromboli recipe comes from this book...



...which I picked up a number of years ago at one of those discount book places that pop up in the middle of shopping malls every now and then.  Basically a stromboli is like a pizza which is rolled up, baked and sliced.  YUM!

Here's how you make it.

Stromboli

Easy Bread Base Ingredients
2 tspn dried yeast
1 cup plus 2 tblspn warm water
2 tspn sugar (I used caster sugar)
1 tspn salt
2 tblespn olive oil
3 cups of high grade/bread flour

Method
Preheat oven to 200 deg C.
Measure the first 5 ingredients and 1 cup of flour into a large bowl.  Mix until well combined.  Cover bowl and leave for 15 minutes.  Stir in remaininig flour (adding extra if necessary) to make dough just firm enough to knead.  Knead for 10 minutes, then return to bowl, cover and rise in a warm place until doubled in size.


Roll dough into a very large thin rectangle (sorry about the poor picture quality here, it was a gloomy day and the indoor lights just didn't cut it!)


Top like a pizza (use toppings SPARINGLY).

I used a sachet of Fountain Pizza Sauce, about 1/4 red capsicum, 1 mushroom, 1/2 brown onion, 10 kalamata olives, fresh basil, Masterfoods "Italian Dried Herbs" and about a half cup of grated cheddar cheese.  I chopped the capsicum, mushroom and onion very finely as Miss 5 won't eat them if they are chunky, whereas she loves the olives in bigger pieces.


Before the cheese...


After the cheese...

Roll the dough up and press any openings firmly shut.  Slash the top diagonally to prevent splitting, then bake for 20-30 minutes or until golden.  If it is cooked all the way through, the stromboli should sound hollow when you tap it on the top.

Before cooking...

After...

You can see it's a little mishapen on the left side near the base (toward the top of the photo) - it actually split a little.  I will make the cuts on top a bit deeper next time as the ones I made just seemed to seal up rather than open to let the heat and moisture out.  It was no biggie though - as I didn't overstuff the inside, not much came out.

And here is the final product...


It's completely delicious and despite my dodgy oven, an absolute success - the bread is lovely and soft (kneading the full 10 minutes really helps here) and I know I'm going to have lots of fun experimenting with the fillings.

If you get the time, do try it - I'd love to hear how you go!

14 comments:

  1. Wow - I bet there was a lot of lunchbox envy on Friday when your daughter pulled hers out of her bag! Thanks for the stromboli recipe - my daughter is going to make some up for the lunchboxes this week.

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  2. Hope it went well! To stop ours from being entirely demolished the day I made it, I ended up slicing and freezing the rest - it's just as good defrosted for lunches as you need it!

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  3. What a fantastic idea! Thanks for the recipe, my 2nd eldest has lunch box issues and im always looking for something new and easy to try!

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  4. I am going to make it in the morning and see how my three year old grand daughter will like it, she it a pizza fan.

    cheers
    Christine

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  5. Mmmmm, Mmmmm, Mmmmmm. My oh my, that looks good. I'm definitely trying this recipe.

    S.W.A.K.

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  6. oh thats great I will try this one but it won't get into lunch boxes we will prob eat it all together with some home grown salad x

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  7. What a yummy lunch! I'll better the other kids wanted to "trade" their lunch for your daughter's....Now you have me curious about this book....I may have to order a copy....Thanks for sharing this recipe/idea with us....

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  8. Oh my goodness, thank you all for your lovely comments! I promise you won't be dissapointed, it tastes really scrummy!! I did check to see if I could find the book online but there was only one incredibly expensive copy!! However, I was out on the weekend and saw it (for around $5!) at "Sam's Warehouse" so if you live in Brisbane, Australia you can certainly pick it up from there!

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  9. Yum Yum Yum!!! Thanks This will be made VERY soon mouth is watering now!! :-)

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  10. see, now, thats what i've always thought a stromboli should look like. there's a pizza place near where i work, and the dude IS from NY, that sells strombolis that look like calzones. don't get me wrong, they taste amazing, but it makes me confused.

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  11. How good does that look!
    Yummo! can't wait to try this one... so glad I found your blog thanks to "A spoonful of sugar"

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  12. OKay, this may sound silly, but I plan to make this, very soon, and it's for my husbands lunch box. He gets tired of sandwiches all the time, so this is going to be a big treat for him. I am looking forward to your lunch box posts. Thanks!

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  13. That's not silly at all! A lot of this made it's way into my hubby's lunchbox too.

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  14. The dough was awesome! This was a big hit at my house! Thanks!

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