Pizza Hand Pies (pizza poptarts)

So this recipe kind of just ‘happened’. As you know I make pizza every single weekend.  I have for centuries.  Okay fine, years but damn it I really feel my age today. I think it’s the change in the weather. I went outside this morning to get some fresh air wearing my pajama bottoms and shirt sleeved shirt and dear lord I thought it was ready to snow it was so chilly!  I stood on my porch for a bit (after I ran back inside and got a hoodie) just letting the sun hit my cheeks and the chilly air blow across my face.  The leaves are falling even faster and soon it’ll be time to break out the commercial leaf-sucker-upper-thingamabob (yes that’s the official name of it).

See we have a little over 5 acres and about 975,000 trees that produce a qadrillion bajillion leaves. Actually I think all the people in our town sneak on to our property at night and put their leaves on our yard too because it’s just obscene how many leaves we have. Don’t get me wrong, it’s absolutely breath-taking when they change colors on the trees but man, why can’t they just stay there?  They don’t need to fall after all.  Or at least fall but then fall on the OTHER side of our fence (meaning in the one neighbor’s yard – the people that we don’t like).

I can remember the first year we moved in.  I told Mr. Fantabulous when we were buying our John Deere (because after us taking 6 hours to cut 5 acres by hand he realized that we THEN needed a tractor) that we should buy the leaf-sucker-upper-thingamabob as that would make picking up the leaves so much easier.  You just hook it to the tractor, connect it to the box trailer and drive around.  Essentially it’s a ginormous vacuum sweeper for your yard.  As it sweeps up the leaves it mulches them.  WIN WIN!  But noooooooooo ol’ Cheapie McCheap thought it was ‘stupid’ and that it wouldn’t take us long to take care of the leaves.

HA!  HA HA HA … not!  It took us 4 hours every night for a solid week to rake up the leaves, put them in the trailer and then hand shovel them out into the fire pit.  I touched a bajillion bugs, got stabbed by sticks, fell numerous times (I’m a clutz), said about a hundred curse words (again the bugs!) and told Mr. Fantabulous that if didn’t buy one the following year he was on his own.  Needless to say he called at the end of the week and bought one for next year.  Talk about a LIFE-SAVER!!!

So this recipe as I was saying kind of just happened. I had made a double batch of pizza dough since our one friend was here all week helping out my husband take care of the yard since I’m quarantined and still pretty weak. I figured the least I could do was feed them.  Now knowing how those guys are (and me) when I’m doing hard physical labor outside I don’t want to stop to eat. Just give me my water and let me work.  At most maybe a protein bar but I don’t want to stop. I kinda don’t like/borderline hate working in the yard. Nature to me is meant to be enjoyed – long walks, running the trails or riding around looking at it.  I don’t want to work at it.

That being said I could have made them traditional pizza but that would have meant they stop mid work, clean up, come in and eat.  Now I don’t know about you but if I’m (forced) to doing outside work I surely don’t want to go back outside once I’m done eating.  I want a nap. LOL

I opted to go with these pizza pop tarts.  They were portable so they could pull weeds with one hand and stuff this into their face with the other.  If it were me I couldn’t do both as inevitably I’d end up stuffing the weeds in my mouth and pitching the food for lack of concentration.  Tell you what, it’s a good thing I’m so damn pretty at times!  LOL

These are super simple to make and OMG insanely delicious! Instead of patting out the dough and stretching it I went again my pizza making principles and used a rolling-pin on pizza dough.  Trust me, it hurt to do this. Pizza dough is meant to have air incorporated in it, it should be puffy and billowy.  When you roll it out, you remove the air/gasses that cause the dough to rise and get that puffy texture.  But with these you don’t want that. You want the dough to be a tad more compressed.  It’s still chewy on the inside but they won’t puff up as much. This allows for a firmer ‘case’ for the fillings inside. 

I rolled out the dough to an 18×12″ rectangle and took my pizza cutter and made 3″ thick sections and then one cut to split them in half.  This gave me 12 squares or 6 total pizza hand pies. Now the trick to these is the egg wash.  You can’t rely just on pinching the edges shut.  The egg wash creates a ‘crust’ that seals the edges preventing any of the fillings to seep out.  Now if you over stuff it then it will leak out.  Less is more on these.

So I popped a tray of these in the oven, baked then for a bit and when they came out I snuck one. I mean I had to make sure they weren’t poisonous, right?  They were so freaking good!  I actually found myself walking around the house eating this thing while I went to grab a container to take them outside to the boys.  So I can attest to their portability and more importantly to the fact that I can walk and eat at the same time…. without tripping!  lol

I put on my mask (remember I’m not allowed around people still), put these on a tray along with some drinks and took them to where the guys were working in the yard. It’s funny because as I was walking down towards them to give them their food I could hear Mr. Fantabulous yelling at me to “get my butt back in the house!” however…

… because there is always a however with him, as soon as he saw that I was carrying food his tone changed and said “Thank you baby now please go back to the house and rest up.”  Men… show them food and they forget everything. So I set the stuff done and went back in. About 2 hours later Mr. Fantabulous stripped down to his gutchies THEN came into the house (thank God we live in the woods as I can’t imagine him doing this is the suburbs) and proceeded to thank me again for lunch and ask for more.  He said they were perfect for working outside and weren’t too heavy on the stomach which meant they didn’t need a nap after lunch.

Since by now the leftover ones were cold I decided to just pop them in the toaster like a poptart.  3-4 minutes later and they came out golden brown, toasted and the fillings were all hot and delicious.  Thus is why I’m refer to these as both a hand pie and a pop tart.  If you eat them when they first come out of the oven they are more of a hand pie.  When toasted they are more pop tart-ish.  Or perhaps it’s just me grasping for straws here.  How about you make them and let me know what you think!

Pizza Hand Pies (pizza poptarts)

• Author: The Kitchen Whisperer

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Ingredients

• 1 Best Pizza Dough
• 2 cups pizza sauce
• 1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella
• 1 1/2 cups shredded provolone
• 1 egg
• 1 Tbl water
• Pizza toppings – pepperoni, bacon, mushroom, sausage, etc…
• 1–2 tsp oregano
• 2–3 tsp corn meal for dusting

Instructions

1. Make the pizza dough per these instructions.
2. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 450F, rack in the middle.
3. Line a large baking pan with parchment, lightly spray and sprinkle lightly with cornmeal.
4. Set the pan aside.
5. Lightly flour your surface and roll out your pizza dough to an 18”x12” rectangle. You want the dough to be about a 1/4” thick.
6. Using your pizza cutter lengthwise, make a cut every 3” giving you 6 3” wide strips.
7. Take your pizza cutter again and cut each strip in half (at the 6” mark) giving you 12 squares.
8. Place 6 rectangles onto your parchment paper leaving 1” space in between. If need be use 2 trays. These are your bottoms, the rest are the tops.
9. In a small bowl beat together the egg and water.
10. In another bowl, mix together the 2 cheeses.
11. Using a small pastry brush, brush the edges (about 1/2”) of the dough rectangles on your sheet with the egg wash.
12. Place about 2-3 Tbl of the cheese mixture in the middle of the rectangle and slowly spread out. You want to keep all of the toppings and sauce about 1/2” from the edge of the dough.
13. Add any toppings (remember LESS IS MORE!).
14. Top with 1-2 Tbl of pizza sauce.
15. Taking one of your tops, place it on top of your filled bottom.
16. Use the tips of your fingers and gently press the edges together all the way around.
17. Using a fork (it may help to dip it in flour to prevent sticking), crimp the edges all the way around the rectangle sealing it.
18. Repeat this until 6 hand pies are made.
19. Take your pastry brush, dip it back in the egg mixture and brush over the entire hand pie especially the edges.
20. Take a toothpick and poke 6 holes just in the top of the dough to help allow the air to escape.
21. Sprinkle the tops with a pinch of oregano.
22. Bake for 8-12 minutes or until the dough is golden brown and feels firm to the touch.
23. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a minute before eating as the fillings will be super-hot

Notes

To reheat I popped mine into the toaster oven and toasted it for 3-4 minutes. They came out perfectly! Be sure though that when you toast them that they are all sealed around the edges. The ones that are not, I would put on a pan and heat up in the oven at 400F for 5-10 minutes.

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