Italian Crescent Ring

About a month or so ago, my mom went to the beach for the weekend with Kenzie and Nick.  Rachel and I were going to join them after we got out of work, but before that could happen, Mom came down with a stomach bug.  They had to wait out the sickness before coming home, and we never ended up going up.  This resulted in leftover food that they had purchased expecting us to be spending the whole weekend at the beach house.  This leftover food included lots of cold cuts.  Before it could go bad, I decided to try out this recipe for dinner one night.  I had seen Italian crescent rings on Pinterest, and I was interested because I had made a breakfast crescent wreath before and thought it was simply a genius idea: use a can of refrigerated crescent dough, fill it with delicious things, and bake it.  It's like a cooler, much easier version of a calzone.

This Italian crescent ring is a riff on the Italian sub.  There's sliced salami, ham and capocollo, along with provolone cheese.  Then you spice things up with roasted red peppers and hot pepper rings.

Obviously with the plethora of meat, I didn't participate in the devouring of this crescent ring, but my family loved it.  Then I brought the leftovers to work and shared them with my coworkers, who ate it both hot and cold and all agreed that it was great.  If you want to take your Italian sub to the next level, this might be the recipe for you!

Recipe:

Italian crescent ring
from Pillsbury

Ingredients:
2 cans (8 ounces each) refrigerated crescent dinner rolls
1/2 cup well drained jarred roasted red peppers
8 slices provolone cheese, halved
1/3 pound deli sliced hot salami
1/4 pound deli sliced ham
1/4 pound deli sliced capocollo
1/2 cup well drained jarred hot pepper rings

Instructions:

1) Heat oven to 375 degrees.  Unroll both cans of dough; separate into 0 rectangles.  On engrossed 12-inch pizza pan, arrange rectangles in a ring so the short sides of the rectangles form a circle in the center.  The dough will overlap; half of each rectangle will hang of the edge of the pan.  Dough ring should look like a sun.

2) Spread roasted red bell peppers toward center of ring on bottom halves of rectangles.  Top with half of the cheese.  Layer salami, ham and capocollo slices over cheese.  Arrange pepper rings over top.  Cover with remaining half of cheese.

3) Bring each dough rectangle hanging over side of pan up and over stacked filling, tucking dough under bottom layer of dough to secure it.  Repeat around sandwich until entire filling is enclosed (some filling might show a little).  Sprinkle with black pepper.

4) Bake 18 - 22 minutes or until dough is golden brown and thoroughly baked.  Cool 5 - 10 minutes before cutting into serving slices.

Avocado Egg Salad

I have never liked egg salad.  I think it's mostly the huge amounts of mayonnaise, which is right up there with meat as things I avoid.  But avocados?  That changes everything.  And no mayo?  And Greek yogurt instead!?!  Yes please.

Besides the obvious hard-boiled eggs and avocado, this salad is flavored with scallions, a little dijon mustard, and lemon juice.  So delicious, and yet so simple.

I was excited about this salad as soon as I saw it.  I whipped up a batch real fast for lunch one Saturday and had a wonderful sandwich on whole wheat bread.  And I may or may not have eaten the leftovers for breakfast the next day spread on a bagel.  And perhaps the next weekend I made it for my family.  And perhaps I now have avocados and obscene amounts of eggs in the fridge to make even more.  It's an addictive salad, just believe me.  You've been warned.

One note: the salad calls for 4 eggs, but you discard the yolks of 2 of some weird reason.  I left mine in the salad and I promise, as someone who often avoids egg yolk, that it was just fine that way!

Recipe:

avocado egg salad
from Two Peas and Their Pod

Ingredients:
2 hard boiled eggs, chopped
2 hard boiled egg whites, chopped
2 small avocados, pitted and peeled
1 tablespoon plain Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons chopped green onion
1/4 teaspoon dijon mustard
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Instructions:

1) In a medium bowl, combine the hard boiled eggs and egg whites, avocado, Greek yogurt, lemon juice, green onion, and mustard.  Mash with a fork.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.

2) To serve, spread between two slices of bread, eat with crackers, cut up veggies, spread on toast, or have it in a wrap.  This salad is best eaten the day it's made, but it will be okay the following day too.