Grilled Ham Turnovers; Vatrushki

     I started my Wednesday by making the crust for the Vatrushki.  I read through the ingredient list and the directions.  It sounded like it was supposed to be similar to a pie crust.  I found it interesting that the directions said to have softened butter.  It seemed strange, but that is what it said to have, so I softened the butter.  I mixed the dry ingredients and then added the wet stuff and mixed that.  I did not use a wooden spoon, I used a fork.  It seemed to work pretty well, but I ended up using my hands, once it was combined thoroughly, to make it "smooth".  It was a very sticky dough. 

     While that was chilling in the refrigerator, I started the filling.  I put the cottage cheese in the Vitamix instead of monkeying around with it, like the recipe suggested.  It worked beautifully, as I knew it would.

  It was so pretty in the bottom of my Vitamix, I almost didn't want to add the other ingredients, but, of course I did and re-blended.  It became really thin.  I was very skeptical that this milky substance would set up.  Unfortunately, my Vitamix bowl wouldn't fit upright in either of my refrigerators, so I poured the goo into a different container and put it in the refrigerator.   

     I figured I would be able to roll out the crust a day early and put them into tartlette pans and leave them in the refrigerator until I was ready to bake them on Thursday.  I rolled out the dough - it was still very sticky, even after an hour in the fridge.  I rolled it out as thinly as I could and then looked for something to cut circles out of the dough.  I started with the biscuit cutters that Jeff had gotten from Pam for his birthday or Christmas or something, but they were smaller than the tartlette pans, so that wasn't going to do.  My regular drinking glasses weren't big enough around either.  I floundered around for a few minutes, thinking I was going to have to free-hand them with a knife, when I looked up.  Above my sink is a glass rack that holds martini glasses and wine glasses.  The martini glasses were the perfect size.

     It turned out, I actually got 15 circles out of the dough.  I had 12 tartlette pans...  The recipe said to free-form the crusts, but I thought that with as runny as the goo was, I wanted something more substantial.  And, besides, I had received the tartlette pans for my birthday and wanted to use them.  I free-formed the extra 3 crusts.  I wrapped them up for their 24 hour chilling.  The ones in the tartlette pans, I stacked together, and wrapped the tower in saran wrap and put those in the fridge, too.
   I grabbed a saved grilling crust from the freezer for the turnover and transferred it to the refrigerator.  I found a premade tomato sauce (not the slow-simmered sauce that the recipe called for) in the freezer while I was in there and opted to use that instead of making a whole new batch of tomato sauce from scratch.  I placed that on the shelf next to the dough and called it a night.
  
     Pam was our only guest again on Thursday.  She showed up just as I was about to roll out the crust.  I stepped back and let her do that.  She is very good at it and made an almost perfect circle of dough.

     While she did that, I removed the tartlette crusts from the fridge and tried to separate my tower of tartlettes.  Unfortunately, the crusts had adhered to the bottoms of the pan that was inside it.  In other words, they were all stuck together, and when I tried to separate them, the crust stayed on the bottom of the nested pan instead of the inside of its rightful pan.  When I tried to peel it off the bottom of the nested pan, the crust ripped off in pieces.  After I mutilated two crusts, Pam had finished rolling out the turnover crust and volunteered to take over my task.  I happily gave it over to her.  Once she had those all separated, the only thing left to do before putting them in the oven was to pour the premade goo into each tartlette crust.

     I started working on the Grilled Ham Turnover.  My first task was to chop the ham.  For one turnover, the recipe called for 3 cups.  I thought that was excessive.  I actually only used about 2 cups.

     I layered the cheese over the crust and spread the sauce and ham mixture over one half.  I lamented to Pam that it seemed counter-productive to have placed the cheese over the entire crust, when you are then going to fold one half over the other.  She explained that the recipe author was trying to make sure that the cheese was on both sides of the ham.  I argued that the cheese was going to spill down into a pile in the center when the crust is folded.  She pointed out the the recipe called for sliced mozzarella, and I had used shredded, and the cheese would probably mostly stay put, if it had been slices.

     I had decided that I wasn't going to grill this outside.  Summer was definitely over, and whoever designed my house was an idiot.  It is a split-level.  If I want to go out my back door, to where my grill is, I have to go downstairs.  Once I am outside, I have to go upstairs to get to my lawn and my grill.  Hauling a bunch of ingredients out that way and then back in again is a pain in the you-know-what.  And, I don't get many volunteers to keep me company out there when it is cold.  Yes, I am sure someone would go if I would ask, but I would feel bad for asking.

     So, in the spirit of the recipe being grilled, I decided we were going to grill it indoors on my Jen-Aire grill.  It isn't ideal, because you cannot close the lid.  It is an open grill built into my counter next to the stove.  There is also no smoky charcoal flavor imparted on the food when it is grilled here.  It is also devoid of the character building grit that the outdoor grill contributes to the food.
     I had turned on the grill to warm it up for a bit before putting the "supposedly" sealed turnover on the grates.  While it was warming, we started chit-chatting and I had forgotten that it was on. 

     Jeff reminded me of that fact, and I went to check it.  It was pretty hot.  I dipped a paper towel in some olive oil, put it in the grip of my tongs and oiled the grate before putting the turnover on.
    The edges that I  had pinched together immediately opened once the turnover hit the hot surface of the grill.  It started to leak into the burners.  Pam grabbed the tongs and tried to pinch it together again and was mostly successful.
     I swear it was only a couple of minutes of catching up with Pam and her week, when I smelled something burning. She said, "oh, it's probably the juices that leaked out and hit the burners".  I grabbed a spatula and peaked under my turnover - it wasn't the juices....   I turned down the heating elements, but I think it was just too late.  I think the original heat-up was too much.  The second side took only another couple of minutes to char a little, too, but I caught it before it looked as charred as the first side.

     At about this time, I decided to check on the tartlettes.  Strangely, only one tartlette, one in the middle (or slightly right of center), browned.  I asked Pam to consult with me on whether or not she thought that they were done.  I had never had these before; there was no indication from the recipe on what they should look like; and there were no other clues in the recipe other than the straight 20 minute timing.  Well, the 20 minutes were up, we jiggled the tray to see if they had "set", and they appeared to have, so we took them out.

     We really thought that they would stick to the tiny little pans, especially since I had smashed the pans (and therefore the dough) together, but Pam flipped the first one over, and voila!  It slipped right out.  Harrah for the new non-stick tartlette pans!
     We started in on the tartlettes first.  They had potential.  The texture of the filling was lovely, smooth and cheesecake-like.  However, the crust was sort of doughy.  We agreed that they should probably have been baked some before pouring the cheese mixture into them.  The flavor of the filling was a little on the bland side.  A couple of shots of my home-made hot-pepper-salt did wonders for it.  Jeff suggested that it would be a good breakfast item, and even spreading some preserves over the top of it for breakfast would be good.  Pam said they were good, and she liked them just as they were (as she was sprinkling on some pepper-salt).
     The turnover was wonderful despite the burnt areas.  The filling really hadn't had quite enough time to get thoroughly cooked, but it was still wonderful.  The salty sweet ham with the sharp provolone and the tomato sauce was tasty.  It was truly a comfort food.  It would have been great with a bowl of cream of wild rice soup (ah, the Minnesota in me comes out!   Ya, you betcha!).