Vegetarian Stromboli, old man cooking

I was making this vegetarian baked wrapped thing before I knew it was called Stromboli. For me, I liked the sweet and tangy filling punctuated by crunchy veggies wrapped in chewy dough. In the fashion of “Old Man Cooking”, it doesn’t take that long to make, it’s vegetarian, but not low cal.

Vegetarian Stromboli filling in the wok

The vegetable filling can change depending on what is in season. My base vegetables are mushrooms, red onion, bell pepper and celery. I start by sautéing the mushrooms and adding 2 heaping tablespoons of minced garlic with butter into the wok.

Sweet, tangy, crunchy and chewy

Then I add the diced veggies, sun dried tomatoes, golden raisins, seasonings and two tablespoons of wasabi sauce. I’ve also added Worcestershire on occasion as well. The sun dried tomatoes and raisins provide the sweetness, wasabi sauce and onions give the tanginess, celery and peppers for crunch and the pizza adds the chewy component.

Key: cook off all the liquid from the veggies

The import part is to cook the veggie filling until there is no liquid in the bottom of the wok. Too much water in the filling will give you soggy under-cooked dough and a mess when you go to cut it. Once the filling is cooked you can set it aside and work on the pizza dough.

Rolling dough

I roll out the pizza dough that I bought already made from a local supermarket. A simple one pound pizza dough recipe made in a bread maker also works fine. With the dough shaped into an approximate rectangle of 10″ x 14″, it is ready for a slathering of pizza sauce (optional) and mozzarella cheese. I then spoon out the veggie filling into the center of the pizza dough.

Fold and oil

Next, I fold the pizza dough over the filling brushing all the dough with olive oil. The olive oil will give the dough a nice brown color when baked and a slightly crunchy texture. Don’t forget to brush some of the olive oil on the underside of the dough so it doesn’t stick to the cooking sheet.

Bake until crisp

A tricky part is transferring the filled pizza dough to the baking sheet. If you haven’t rolled the dough too thin, it should hold together as you use two hands to move the doughy blob to the baking sheet. The last vegetarian Stromboli I baked was with the convection setting at 325 F degrees for about 45 minutes. You’ll get a deeper browning of the dough using a conventional bake mode at 375 F  for approximately 30 minutes.

Pizza pockets

An alternative to one big Stromboli log is to cut the dough into individual plate size portions and fill accordingly. The vegetarian Stromboli will feed four adults. With summer coming, I will modify the Stromboli blob to cook in a Bar-B-Q on a pizza stone. That should be interesting.

Ingredients

• 8 – 10 oz. of sliced mushrooms
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 3 oz. sun dried julienne cut tomatoes
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 red onion
• 2 celery stalks
• 11/2 cup golden raisins
• 2 tablespoons of wasabi sauce
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
  

  Diced vegetables: onions, pepper, celery

• Seasonings and Herbs to taste: salt, pepper, oregano, celery seed
• Olive oil
• Pizza sauce optional
• 1 pound of pizza dough

Steps

Saute mushrooms and garlic in butter until lots of water fills the wok. Add the rest of the diced veggies, sun dried tomatoes, raisins, wasabi sauce, and seasonings and stir until no liquid is left and things start to really sizzle in the wok.

Roll pizza dough into a rectangle. Brush on pizza sauce and top with mozzarella cheese. Spoon in sautéed veggie filling and top with more shredded mozzarella. Fold pizza dough over to create a flat log. Transfer Stromboli to baking sheet. Liberally coat pizza dough, inside and outside, with olive oil, don’t forget the bottom.

Bake for approximate 30 minutes or until golden brown. Transfer cooked Stromboli to a cutting board and slice up portions for serving. If I forgot an ingredient or a step in the process…remember… I’m just an old man try to cook dinner, not write a cook book.