Veggie, meat and cheese stromboli...

The weekend is here, we are suppose to have beautiful weather on Saturday and it is pizza night... life is good! Instead of one big round for tonight's pizza, I grabbed my trusty dough scraper and plunged it through the pound version of our favorite whole-wheat pizza dough to make four pieces about the same size.

We needed that pliable dough quartered so I could start stretching each piece into an oval for the Broccoli, Salsa and Mozzarella Stromboli I had on the menu. If you find the dough resistant to get to the size required, set it aside, covered, and let it relax for a few minutes while you work on the next piece.

The first layer on each oval was a liberal mound of fresh broccoli that I had steamed and chopped. If you'd rather skip that step, you could use frozen chopped broccoli, but let it thaw first and press out as much of the excess liquid that you can. Before moving on, you'll want to season well with salt and fresh ground black pepper at this point to pop the broccoli. Next we scattered on minced cloves of garlic, followed by a shower of shredded mozzarella, full-flavored chopped Genoa salami and a couple spoonfuls of spicy chipotle salsa. Your favorite marinara or pizza sauce would of course work here, but I went this route to lend a little zip. Unlike a calzone, these stromboli are simply rolled up, as you would a jelly roll, and just placed on the baking sheet seam-side down - don't even worry about sealing those edges... keep it rustic!

A couple slits on top, followed by a rub of olive oil for a golden shine, you will need to allow a few extra minutes for these to bake than you would need for your average pizza. The salsa inside helps to keep the filling moist, but you may even want to serve extra salsa or sauce on the side if you or your guests would like for dipping. Even if you think there is not enough salami for each stromboli, try not to be tempted to add more. It can be fairly rich and assertive, so a little can go a long way - you still want to be able to taste the freshness of the broccoli and the mild mozzarella.

There is one suggestion I have to add about the assembly process, which I've already reflected in the recipe. Instead of the salsa (or marinara) being added as the final filling ingredient, I would spoon it on directly over the broccoli instead, then add the cheese and salami. When you go to roll the dough up, it can get quite messy if you have to dig your finger into the salsa to tuck the ingredients in as you go! If I would have only thought about that before I assembled all of the filling on top of the doughs!

Recipes
Broccoli, Salsa and Mozzarella Stromboli