Wings (Buffalo style) meet Calzones! Part I and II

Trying something different today... I'm going to write about my restaurant experience and my recreation in the same blog post.

If you know me, you know that I keep myself pretty busy.  I am a nursing student, so busy should really be my middle name.  I also really enjoy photography.  I decided to combine the two and became class historian.  It's fun, and it gives me an excuse to carry my camera to school.

A few weeks back, the class officers got together to talk about fundraising ideas to help offset the cost of graduation for the class.  We met at a restaurant called Ledo's Pizza.  They had a nice little meeting room we could use.  They have a pretty impressive menu... but the thing that stuck out to me was the Buffalo Chicken Wing Calzone.  When I first moved down to Fredericksburg, I was on the hunt for the closest thing to a true Buffalo Wing.  I went many places and found that Buffalo Wild Wings was really the only place (at least so far... but I'm willing to take suggestions.)  Quaker Steak and Lube is a close second.  But, this calzone perked my interest... I just had to try it.

It was huge!  Barely fit on the plate.  It was cheesy and had a really tangy buffalo sauce and perfectly cooked chicken.  Even better, you could get blue cheese crumbles on the side!  Yep, none of that ranch stuff.  Real Buffalo Chicken Wings are NOT served with ranch. 

I really enjoyed the calzone.  I was only able to eat half of it, but I did take the other half home and had it for lunch the next day, with my left over blue cheese crumbles.

Finally, I decided to try to make it for dinner the other night.  I waited until I had a day where I could make my own crust.  While the crust was rising (basic pizza dough recipe I found in my Joy of Cooking cookbook), I cooked the chicken.  I pounded a skinless boneless chicken breast out, seasoned it with salt, pepper and a splash of Frank's Red Hot sauce.  I put that in the oven at 350 until it was cooked.  (I should really look at the time when I put things into the oven, but I watch them like a hawk to see when they are done cooking.)

To put the calzone together, I took 1/4 of the dough and hand stretched it into a round, pizza looking crust.  I put mozzarella cheese, some asiago cheese and the chicken (cut into small pieces) on half of the crust.  I topped that with more Frank's sauce and then folded the uncovered side of the dough over like making pierogies.  I put that on a foil lined baking sheet and into the oven at 400 for about 25 minutes.  I actually made two, one for me, and one for Darryl.  These calzones were smaller than the one I had at Ledo's, but I still had left overs.  Darryl really enjoyed it, so they became his lunch for the week.  He also requested that it be added to our regular meal rotation.

I served my calzones with blue cheese crumbles on the side.  The blue cheese is nice because it cools the heat of the hot sauce, but adds its own flavorful punch. 

This meal is pretty easy to make.  It can be a quick meal on a busy night if you buy all of the ingredients at the grocery store.  I know that Wegmans has pre-made pizza dough, sauce, cheese and flavorful toppings all in one quick grab area (by the bakery in my store).  You could also get the pre-cooked shredded chicken in the grocery isle by the canned tuna to make the wing-meets-calzone recipe.

By making everything on my own, this was a pretty affordable meal.  I always have flour on hand.  I've been buying yeast to make my own french bread.  Add a bit of salt and some water (perhaps a little bit of sugar to the water and yeast combo to help the yeast along) and, in about an hour you have a great pizza dough.  For the chicken... I am a bargain shopper.  I love getting to Wegmans really early on a weekday morning to look for my favorite bright orange stickers that say "special today."  These signal that the meat is nearing the last day the store can sell it (not the last day it is fresh) and usually the meat is marked half off.  I have a freezer full of meat that I bought this way.  If chicken is not marked down, I can get the chicken breasts for pretty cheap if I buy them in the "big pack" which is like bulk or club pricing (think BJ's massive tub of mayo pricing).  I use one and freeze the other 9 or so. 

I will be making another calzone today.  I'll take pictures as I go.  Tonight I have something to do for school, and Darryl will be on his own, so he'll be able to reheat this when he gets home from work, and then take what's left for lunch tomorrow.  I didn't use all of the dough when I made the other two, and I left some chicken out.  Today, I think I will add the blue cheese right into the calzone and see if he likes it that way.

Hope I've inspired you.  Let me know what you think.

Inspiration from my other meals!

I know my challenge is to eat at a different restaurant, and then make the meal at home... but I thought I would write about some of my other meals, that were in some way inspired by the meals I've made so far, or by the great Williamsburg Cookbooks that I bought to make my tavern meals.

I had a turkey breast in the freezer, so I defrosted it, seasoned it like I normally would do a turkey for my special "Canadian Thanksgiving" meal, and popped it on the grill.  I did the tavern potatoes as well, slicing small potatoes into wedges, coating them with oil and seasonings, wrapped them in foil and put them on the grill as well.  For my vegetable I chose corn on the cob from the farmer's market.  I made biscuits from scratch (using a recipe in a Williamsburg cookbook) and a gravy in the other Williamsburg Cookbook.  I really enjoyed this meal.

My turkey was wonderful!  Nice and juicy, full of flavor from the thyme, rosemary and sage (all fresh from my garden).  It was skinless, but the outside was grilled nicely and had a bit of a crunch from the herbs.  The potatoes came out perfect... the way I wish they would have come out when trying to replicate my King's Arms Tavern meal.  They were very flavorful from the olive oil, sprig of thyme, salt, pepper and onion and garlic powders.  They had a nice crispy outside, with tender potato inside.  My biscuits were pretty good.  I liked the taste, unfortunately I should have watched them a little more closely, or removed them from the oven while I went out to the grill.  I stayed by the grill for just a moment too long and when I came in, my biscuits were quite brown, but not burnt.  I was disappointed in the corn I bough from the farmer's market.  We were not the first to feast on it, and there were many kernels that never developed properly.  I was kinda shocked by this, since all the other produce I get from that vendor is usually perfect.  I guess that's why they had the little sign "please do not open the husks."  Only the very top was damaged by corn worms.  The rest of the corn that was edible did taste pretty good.  I just boiled water, and then applied butter and salt once they were done cooking.  The gravy was really good.  I really thought about cutting down the recipe to make less, but the book said it was to be served with a pound of turkey... I had a piece of turkey that was just over a pound.  I had enough gravy to feed a small army.  It was very flavorful.  I have to admit though... when I warmed up the chicken stock, I did add the same herbs I used on the turkey to add some flavor to the stock.  I could taste the thyme later in the gravy and I'm happy I did that.  Overall, a very successful meal.

After my failed attempt on Friday, I wasn't in the mood to cook Saturday.  But I was back into it on Sunday.  I decided to use leftovers up... mostly the chicken and the gravy from turkey.  Low and behold, a Williamsburg Cookbook had a recipe for "King's Arms Tavern Chicken Pot Pie."  Hum... chicken, gravy... all I had to add were the potatoes and some carrots and peas.  I pre-cooked all the veggies, and then made a nice pie dough (also found in the Williamsburg Cookbooks).  Put them all together and I had two beautiful pies, ready to be eaten.  We ended up having these for two nights because they were so big.  You'll notice in the pictures that one has an R and the other has a D... well, I prefer the dark meat, and Darryl likes the white meat, so that's how I made each of ours.  They were wonderful and tasted so much better than the ones in the freezer section in the store.  I bet they even had a lot less sodium!

Well, hope you enjoyed this distraction from my normal restaurant/cooking stuff.  I had lunch at a cool little place in Downtown Fredericksburg that I'll be writing about soon, and tonight, I'm headed to Park Lane Tavern with some friends.  Wow... I'll have a bunch of writing to do.

Dinner at Shields Tavern, Williamsburg, Part II. It's my turn to cook.

Ok, the picture doesn't do the dish justice.  I did take it with my phone.  And, this is only my plate, so you'll notice there's only a few bites of squash in the upper corner.  :)

I think I did pretty good with this dish.  I decided to plate it a little differently than it was plated at Shields Tavern... let each food item stand on it's own and put the Madeira sauce in the middle.  There's a reason for that... read on.

I decided to cook almost everything on our grill, kinda sorta in the fashion that would be done in colonial times... except that they cooked in a kitchen that was not attached to their house and had a fireplace and coals and such.  I figured the grill was outside of my house (although run off a gas line attached to the house).  The whole idea of having a separate kitchen was a great idea.  You didn't have the smell of the food lingering for hours in the living spaces, and if your kitchen burned down, you didn't lose your whole house.  I hope to NEVER burn down my kitchen, and I really wish I had cooked the Madeira sauce outside.  My house smells like onions, still, today, and I made this meal yesterday!

I'll start with my least favorite item: the veggies.  I got some green and yellow squash at the Fredericksburg farmers market by Hurkamp park.  I like that I can get the variety of fresh produce daily at that location... helps with fresh meals.  I cut them into 1/2 inch thick pieces, brushed on some extra virgin olive oil (evoo) along with some salt and pepper.  They went on the grill for about 6-8 minutes as the chicken and potatoes were finishing up.  I'll admit, I did enjoy them... and think I'll make more for dinner tomorrow. 

The potatoes:  red potatoes I picked up at the farmer's market as well.  I cut them into equal-ish sized wedges, coated with evoo, salt and pepper.  I put them into a foil pouch and placed them on the grill for about 20 or so minutes.  They turned out really good.  Nice and soft on the inside.  Slightly crispy on the outside.

The chicken:  I borrowed this recipe from a weekend trip we took to our friends' house in Waynesboro, VA.  They made an awesome beer can chicken.  So did I.  The recipe is in a Weber's cook book "Real Grilling."  I figured it was a great way to make a roasted chicken.  It used the same herbs I could taste on the chicken I had at Shields Tavern... thyme and rosemary, and a hint of garlic.  The recipe also calls for paprika, which I did use, but think I should have used a spicier pepper to more closely mimic the kick the chicken at the restaurant had.  This was one of my "live and learn" moments.  None the less, the chicken was great.  Very moist on the inside and out.  Very flavorful from the herbs and spices, and nicely crispy from the flames that enjoyed the dripping fat.  (another live and learn moment when I opened the grill to a bonfire).  In the picture above, you are seeing just the leg and thigh... I'm more of a dark meat fan, so Darryl had the pleasure of enjoying the white meat.  During carving though, I did sneak a piece and it was just as moist as the dark meat.

The Madeira Sauce:  this was probably my best "live and learn" moment.  First off, don't cook onions in a house with closed up windows.  Like I said, my house still smells like onion.  This is one of the recipes I took from a cook book I bought in Colonial Williamsburg: "Favorite Meals from Williamsburg."  In the book, the sauce is introduced for the Yuletide Supper and served on top of boneless breast of chicken with Virginia ham.  I don't want to give away the whole recipe, but it does involve minced carrot, minced onion, butter, beef broth, flour and about an hour of simmering.  Then you make a second flavor layer by simmering shallots in Madeira for about 10 minutes.  You mix the two layers together and simmer for another 15 minutes.  Serve warm.  My flavor was great, you could really taste each ingredient, and I used low sodium beef broth, so it was not too salty.  My only problem was that it was so thick.  Even thicker than gravy.  I had to stir in extra beef broth to thin it out.  This is why I decided to serve it in the middle of the plate and not over any of the ingredients, allowing the diner to add as much or as little of the sauce to their food as they desired.

As much as I really enjoyed the Whipped Chocolate Pudding, I did not make it as a dessert for this meal.  I will make that another time when I have dessert loving people around to help me enjoy it.

So, overall, I would definitely cook this meal again.  It was a bit time consuming since the sauce takes about an hour and a half, as does the chicken, but it was a really good meal.

The cost?  Well, I spent $5 at the farmers market, but picked up potatoes for two days worth of meals, garlic, a red and green pepper, the two squash, an onion (which I only used a very small part of) and two carrots (again, only using a small part of one carrot).  Wegmans came in handy for everything else.  With the chicken, broth, Madeira, butter and beer (only using a half a can), the total meal for the two of us, with some leftovers, cost about $30.00.

Dinner at Shields Tavern, Williamsburg, Part I

I loved Williamsburg!  While there, we took the time to eat dinner at two of the historical taverns.  The first one we ate at was King's Arm Tavern.  A wonderful experience that I will write about later.  The second one we ate dinner at was Shields Tavern.  You can check out their website here: http://www.colonialwilliamsburg.com/visit/diningExperience/shields/index.cfm.

Our reservations were at 5:45pm.  We arrived about 15 minutes early and were seated right away.  We sat downstairs in a room that was at the very end of the tavern.  I believe the kitchen was directly behind us, but they did a great job of hiding that from us (except when people like me do a little bit of snooping).  There was not much decor in the room we were in except for the candle on our table, which was lit.  In fact, there were no electric lights, so had the sun set, I think we would have had a wonderful dinner by candlelight.  But, in August at 5:45pm, there is still plenty of sunlight.  The building did have A/C, which was nice... it was so hot and humid outside that after walking around all day our clothes just seemed damp.  Since they use the older style panes of glass in the windows, there was condensation on the outside due to the high humidity.  That was a neat effect on the windows.

We did not start our meal with an appetizer.  I'll be honest, I don't remember what Darryl had for dinner, so I'm not going to write about that.  I enjoyed the Barnyard Chicken.  It was a half chicken that was roasted with herbs and served with a Madeira sauce over tavern potatoes and vegetable of the day.  The vegetable was yellow and green squash.  My chicken was perfect!  I am a fan of dark meat over the white meat, so I started with the leg and thigh.  The skin was crisp and had the flavor of thyme, rosemary, and garlic.  There was also a spicy kick to it, but I'm not sure which pepper it was.  Did not taste like black peppercorn, more like a cayenne.  It did have salt and black pepper as well.  You could taste the seasoning in the meat as well, and the meat was perfectly moist.  The Madeira sauce was very good.  It was not quite as thick as a gravy, so it did not have a heavy overbearing presence.  It was there as a background flavor that worked nicely.  You could pick up hints of onion and carrot in the sauce. 

As I'm sure I've said before, I'm not a big veggie fan.  Admittedly, I only had a few bites of the squash, just enough to see that they were nice and soft and well flavored with salt and pepper.  The simple flavors let the taste of the vegetable shine through.  I did enjoy the few bites I took.

My potatoes seemed to be the only problem.  I don't think they were fully cooked.  They were small red potatoes that had been cut into wedges and then roasted with simple flavoring of salt, pepper and oil or butter.  The Madeira sauce was poured over them as well.  They still had a bit of a crunch to them.  They were still edible and did still taste good.  I did not complain or send my dish back.  Darryl had the same potatoes and his were done perfectly.

You can't go to a nice place like this without having dessert.  I had the Whipped Chocolate Pudding.  It was wonderful.  It was more like a mouse the way it was whipped until light and fluffy.  The whipped cream on top was a perfect balance to the more semi-sweet chocolate underneath.  I think I also picked up a hint of cinnamon in the pudding as well.  There is a special sipping chocolate (hot chocolate) that was served in the reproduction of the colonial coffeehouse... it had a similar taste.  I should have purchased the mix while I was there and perhaps I could describe the taste better.  It was not as sweet as the hot chocolate we drink today.  I rather enjoyed it!

Since this is a historic attraction, in a tourist destination, you can expect to pay tourist prices.  Dinner was quite pricey.  My main course was $25.50 (not including tip or tax).  I'll let you know what I spend to recreate it in my Part II post.  Overall I did not mind spending the money on the meal.  The money goes back into Colonial Williamsburg and their ongoing efforts of presenting history. 

I would go back to this restaurant again.  In fact, I did.  Actually, we had lunch there earlier that day.  I had a really great turkey, swiss and bacon sandwich (hold the lettuce and tomato please) that came with fried tavern potatoes (that were perfectly cooked).  It was a fresh turkey breast, so I will work on recreating that meal again soon.  And I'll tell you about the meal at that time.