Sometimes things go wrong.

Monday night I was ready to cook. I was looking forward to dinner in front of a new episode of Heroes (finally!) and was trying out a calzone recipe for the first time.

I came home and started making the dough with my new supply of yeast, bread dough, sugar, salt and olive oil. The mixing and kneading went well. I tried out a new technique of placing the bowl of dough in a closed (turned off) oven with a bowl of hot water on the bottom rack. This was supposed to create a warmer environment encouraging faster rising, but I can't really say I noticed a difference.

My other inspiration for the evening was trying my hand at a Caesar salad dressing (minus the anchovies and raw eggs). I found a decent sounding recipe on Cooking light for the dressing and mixed it up.



While whisking and thinking of crisp romaine lettuce with parmesan cheese, I suddenly desired garlic croûtons for my salad as well.

"I'll make them! We have some bread!"

And, boy, did they look good:



But, as stated in the title, sometimes things go wrong.

Broiler on, croûtons in the oven, my attention turned to the filling for my calzones. The room filled with the delicious smell of onions and garlic sauteeing in olive oil as I added chicken sausage to the mix.

Things got smoky.

Must be something on the burner, the smoke is coming from under the skillet.

Nope.

OH.
SHIT.

"Justin, something is on fire again!!"



Windows opened, coughing, disappointment.

A promise to myself to ALWAYS set the timer, even if I am only broiling something for "a minute" (today's lesson).

I managed to shake it off and get dinner on the (coffee) table in time for Heroes. Well, at least in time for a DVR delayed viewing.

Color is not great, but here is the final plating:



The recipe I started with can be found here, but I altered it a bit, including switching out the peppers for some frozen spinach and making 4 larger calzones in lieu of 8 small ones.

Left-overs were yummy too.