1 package active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella
1/2 cup fresh broccoli
1 tablespoon dried basil leaves (optional, i have a plant so i use some)
1 egg (also optional)

Dough: In a bowl, dissolve the yeast in water. Add the oil and salt; mix in 1 cup of the flour until smooth. Gradually stir in the rest of the flour, until dough is smooth and workable. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface for about 5 minutes, or until it is elastic. Lay dough in a bowl containing 1 teaspoon olive oil, then flip the dough, cover and let rise for 40 minutes, or until almost doubled.

Filling: While dough is rising, combine the ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese, broccoli and basil leaves in a large bowl. Mix well, cover bowl and refrigerate to chill.

Preheat oven to 350-375 degrees.

When dough is ready, punch it down and separate it into 2 equal parts. Roll parts out into thin circles on a lightly floured surface. Fill each circle with 1/2 of the cheese/filling.. fold over, securing edges by folding in and pressing. Brush the top of each calzone with egg (or olive oil) and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet.

Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 25-30 minutes. Serve hot.

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What happens when you're experimenting with high-cacao chocolates (because they're actually good for you!) and you come across one that is just plain inedible? You make something yummy, of course!

This was a 100% cacao chocolate bar. No milk, no sugar. Way too bitter to eat by itself.

If you're like me and don't have a double-boiler, you can fake one by putting water in a saucepan, bringing the water to a boil, and then putting a metal bowl in the pan.

In the bowl part of the double-boiler, melt the chocolate and a stick of butter (keep stirring them so they don't stick to the bottom of the bowl). Add some almonds, blueberries and raspberries. Stir until everything's coated and somewhat evenly distributed.

Line a cookie sheet, casserole dish or pie plate with wax paper. Pour the chocolaty melty stuff on top, and stick it in the refrigerator. It should harden enough to eat in about 3 hours.

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Sometimes dinner's just so delicious it needs to wind up on the blog. And so it was with Sunday night's fare.

This started with large haddock fillets rubbed down with a Central New York favorite – a Java Gourmet dessert rub (Keuka Lake). After letting the rub seep in a bit, I sautéed some banana peppers in coconut oil and added the haddock, cooking until done.

Meanwhile, in the other pan...

I started with a generous helping of sesame oil and added some chili oil. I had some leftover chopped onions, so threw those in there, and then added a head of escarole.

And that's it, folks. Easy, tasty, healthy.

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This is a 3-hour chili recipe, but if you used a stove-top pot instead of a crock pot, it would go quicker.

You'll need:

1 lb black beans, rinsed
1 lb kidney beans, rinsed
2 lb ground beef
1 med onion, chopped
1 jar salsa
6 habanero peppers
6 jalapeño peppers
chili powder to taste
water
olive oil (or your favorite cooking oil)

In crock pot, combine the beans, salsa, two chopped jalapeños and some chili powder. Stir it, then put it on high.

Finely chop the rest of the peppers (I used a Magic Bullet, which made life easy). In a medium pan over medium heat, sauté the peppers and onions in some olive oil. Add the ground beef and some chili powder.

When beef is browned, drain off the liquid and add the beef, onions and peppers to the crock pot. Stir. Cook on low, stirring occasionally. If it starts to look dry, add water as necessary.

Eat.

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Last Sunday, we made enough soup for the week. It's ridiculously easy, and tastes better as the week goes on.

Ingredients:

6 fresh beets
1 beef bone (we used a split knuckle bone, because it's what was available)
Water

Preparation:

1. Cut the greens and ends off the beats. Wash them thoroughly.

2. Place the beets and beef bone in a large pot of water. Bring to a boil, and keep boiling for 2 hours.

3. Remove the beets from the water; put them in a bowl and get them cool enough to handle.

4. Peel the beets, then shred them.

5. Put the shredded beets back in the pot. Simmer until you're hungry.

You may want to add some salt and pepper to your bowl, but you might not. Up to you. I like it with pepper, not salt. Yummers.

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I haven't really had a chance to try something new in the kitchen for a while. So I thought, "Hmm, who wouldn't love some paella tonight?" And there was paella.

I cooked the rice in a rice cooker; it's white rice with turmeric, because apparently saffron is unavailable in my local supermarket. I did a quick Google search in the spice aisle, and discovered turmeric is "the poor man's saffron." Good enough, I guess. It was tasty anyway.

While the rice was cooking I had two other items on the stove:

• A pan with diced onion, diced red pepper, hot sausage and bay scallops, seasoned with black pepper and dried parsley sautéing in olive oil
• A pot with littleneck clams and shrimp (I also got two cherrystones to serve as a strong visual, for presentation – that's the big clam you see on the right).

When the rice was done, I mixed in some peas. I drained the sausage/scallop mixture and added it, then the clams and shrimp and tossed the whole lot together.

We enjoyed it with this year's Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau, which is probably the best vintage in a few years. I always forget how much I like this wine.

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This one was real easy and really tasty. I'm not actually sure how much pork I used; I got a huge tenderloin and cut it into a few parts and froze most of it. But you could use this on any amount of pork that fits in a 9x13 casserole dish.

- Pork, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 2 bananas, sliced
- 1 can apricot nectar
- 1 can banana nectar

Bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes or until fully cooked.

I did this with steamed baby carrots.

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I used chuck steak and bay scallops to keep the cost down. The chuck steak gets soft enough if you cook it in enough liquid, and it turned out that the bay scallops were the right choice here, since sea scallops would have taken over the flavor of this dish and made the creativity part of it moot.

We started by sautéing some sliced baby bellas, then poured some condensed mushroom soup in there. We had some leftover sun-dried tomato marinade we had used on some chicken, and of course added a healthy amount of the best stuff on earth (Sriracha).

We added some diced red bell pepper, then the bay scallops and cubed chuck steak, poured the whole thing over some jasmine rice, and enjoyed it with a Gnarly Head Cab.

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I sautéed the catfish (2 fillets) in butter, mustard seed and a splash of drinking (not cooking) sherry. Specifically, I used Harvey's Bristol Cream.

The sauce, which is where the real magic was:

1. Sauté five large sliced mushrooms in butter and mustard seed
2. Pour some Harvey's Bristol Cream sherry on it (probably about 1/8 of a cup)
3. Add 2 tablespoons of half & half
4. Let simmer until there's just enough liquid left to pour over the fish (with the mushrooms, of course)

It's more of a hearty, winter sort of sauce, but it was delicious. Give it a shot, let me know what you think.

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Overnight, soak salmon fillets in apple cider (or apple juice and cinnamon, but if you can do the cider, all the better). In the refrigerator, of course. You don't want to give anybody food poisoning.

You'll cook the fillets in the cider (fish side down first; the pan will get hot enough to deal with the skin side later). But the magic here is in the topping.

In another pan, melt some butter, then soften some chopped walnuts. Add chopped peaches, raisins, cinnamon, and maple syrup. Drain the liquid before you serve it over the fish.

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