Jamaican patties, peanut butter and jam calzone

I was going to make something else for dinner Friday, but as soon as I saw this recipe for Jamaican veggie patties on 101cookbooks.com, I changed course. They are awfully cute and I love anything with coconut milk. Plus, I had most of the ingredients on hand, including some cabbage and frozen peas that were burning a hole in my pocket. Plus also, the season finale of Battlestar Galactica was on, and this seemed suitably festive. More festive than rice and vegetables, or whatever other humdrum dish I'd had in mind.

The little pies turned out very tasty and rich. Between the coconut milk in the filling and the coconut oil in the crust, the fat content is pretty well up there. But coconut oil supposedly contains a fatty acid that's rare in the American diet, so I always feel good, if not virtuous, about eating it. (There's even a "coconut oil diet," which is one of the more delicious-sounding fad diets out there.)



The next day, Mike and I went hiking at the Morton Arboretum. Hiking might be putting it strongly, because the arboretum is extremely well manicured, more like a park than a forest, and it costs eleven dollars to get in. But it does have many miles of hiking trails, and we didn't want to deal with the muddiness of a state park. We took the leftover pies for lunch, and they make decent hiking food: compact, high calorie, sturdy. But it seems a pity to schlep a relatively elegant and subtly spiced savory pie around in a backpack and devour it while sitting on a stump. It at least deserves reheating and a plate. No, hiking calls for rustic and childlike dishes: peanut butter sandwiches, trail mix, apples, oatmeal cookies.

This gave me an idea. I envisioned the perfect hiking food: a hand pie filled with peanut butter and jam. A fat-and-flour pie crust would be too greasy, so I thought a yeasted crust, like a calzone, would be the way to go. I had to give it a try.

Peanut Butter and Jam Calzone

I started by making a batch of basic whole wheat bread dough, which I do every week anyway. I used the recipe from Artisan Baking in Five Minutes a Day, which is very similar to a recipe on orangette that I've made before. The first recipe is "no-knead" and has to sit for at least a couple hours; the second requires kneading; both have good results. After making your dough and either kneading it or letting it sit for a while, refrigerate it for at least an hour. This will make it easier to work with. Position a pizza stone on the bottom rack of your oven and preheat to 450 degrees. (If you don't have a pizza stone, try baking the calzones on a greased cookie sheet. I bet this would work fine.)

Roll out the dough as if you are making a pizza to a thickness of about 1/4 inch. Then cut out circles of dough, using a small bowl as a guide. (My bowl is 3-4 inches in diameter.)



Next, top your dough with a tablespoon of peanut butter and about the same amount of jam, or less.



Fold over the dough into a semicircle, and crimp the edges:



To prevent puffiness, slash or prick the top of your pie, creating a hole for steam to escape. Using a pizza peel, slide the pie into the oven and on to the pizza stone. Check it after ten minutes; mine took about twelve minutes to bake after the stone was fully heated up. When the pie is golden brown, it's done. (If you use a cookie sheet, the baking time will be longer.)






It occurs to me that these would be perfect for a child's lunchbox, like a homemade version of Uncrustables. Or would they mortify a child who just wants a sandwich like everyone else? And really, why go to all this trouble when you can make a peanut butter sandwich in about two minutes?

Don't get me wrong, I think they are awesome. I just ate two. I couldn't help myself, and now I'm full and feel like taking a nap even though it's only midmorning. Here are my tweaks for next time:

1. Roll the dough as thin as possible.
2. Use more peanut butter and jam.
   
3. Do not overcook.

This batch of pies has a high bread-to-filling ratio, and the bread is rather chewy, so I might try to shift that ratio. Also, I'll try baking on a cookie sheet to see what that does to the texture.