Shrimp and Tasso Calzones; Khachapuri

     I vaguely recalled hearing the word "tasso" before, but I had never had a recipe call for it nor had I ever tried to shop for it,.  If this is a regular Cub item, I could not find it.  I wasn't sure where to look.  I tried the specialty meat areas, where I would find buffalo, lamb, and specially made sausage type products.  I tried the frozen meat area to no avail.  I tried the ethnic food section, where I can sometimes find some smoked or dried meats - no luck.  I had meant to call around to the different stores in my area to see who carried it before I started driving all around for it.  I thought this was a good idea since there was a winter storm on the way, and I really haven't felt like galavanting all over the metro.  However, the calls didn't happen by the time I was ready to start in on Wednesday.  

     On my way to a much needed vacation to California on the 17th, I got a text from a co-worker, letting me know that the owner of our company sold it to a nationwide distributor, and there was no word yet if we were going to have jobs.  I went back to work after my vacation, and word came on Wednesday that the new company was going to make us re-apply for jobs.  We all received a group e-mail, giving us a link to apply for sales and marketing positions.  Nothing was mentioned about any office staff positions, and when I asked my ersatz leader about this omission, he informed me that the letter said "all employees".  I re-read the notice several times, and there was no mention of this.  The general consensus in my immediate vacinity was that we were going to get what I affectionately refer to as "the shaft".  This was even more disappointing than the "jelly-of-the-month-club" we received instead of bonuses at Christmas.

     Needless to say, my tasso mission was all but forgotten until I came home and reviewed the recipes on Wednesday.  A search of my freezer proved to be no help.  I found pork chops, chicken thighs, soup bones, lobster tails, Italian sausage, lunchmeat, ham, swordfish, soybeans, waffles, dates, raspberries, roasted peppers, strawberries, mystery tomato-type sauce, scallops (in two different  sizes), hamburger, and gyro meat.  I could have sworn that my friend Karen gave us one chirizo, and I had frozen it to save for a good use.  I found no such item.  Maybe it wasn't chirizo that she gave me.  I failed.  I wondered if I would get a lunch Thursday and would be able to find something suitable in my allotted hour. 

     It had been a couple of weeks since I made pizza, so my mental inventory of premade crusts had detreriorated.  I searched the freezer and could not find any premade classic crust dough.  I did find some "speed-scratch" sauce, so I had that going for me.  Time to make another batch, using the term "batch" lightly, since the current calzone section that we are in only makes two calzone recipes-worth of crust.

     Apparently, my mental inventory deficiency wasn't isolated to crusts.  I knew that we had cooked shrimp in the freezer downstairs, so when Jeff came in from snow-blowing the driveway and asked if I needed anything from outside before he took his boots off, I said no.  I went downstairs while the dough was forming in my KitchenAide and grabbed the shrimp.  When I got upstairs, I realized it was uncooked shrimp instead of cooked shrimp.  Normally, I would go with it, because the shrimp is going to be cooked again in the calzone, but we had just bought a couple of bags of pre-cooked shrimp because it was on sale (of course).  We had eaten the first package just after the Super Bowl (we had too much food during the actual event to lower ourselves to mere shrimp cocktail), and it was better than I remembered it.  I shy away from buying cooked shrimp for any application, really, because it always had seemed to me that they were overcooked and slightly rubbery, but this stuff was good.  And, why cook another package, when I know that I could save a step by sending Jeff back into the wintery coldness to forage in our garage freezer for that elusive second package.

     My hero returned with the shrimp and a package of bacon just as I was finishing up the dough, so I set it in a collander under the faucet to thaw it for the tail removal portion of the evening.  While the shrimp thawed, I chopped parsley, onions, and peppers.  I cheated for the garlic and used the prechopped variety.  I mixed everything together, as instructed, except the elusive tasso.  I didn't have Tabasco brand of hot sauce, but I thought my favorite light hot sauce would do just fine, so I squirted about four dashes of La Anita habenero into the mixture.

     My only registered guest at this point was Pammy, so I debated about making preparations for the cheese-filled bread or skipping it, because we would already have enough food for the three of us with just the calzone.  But what the heck?  If I could just get the dough conquered, I could have Pam shred the cheese and load the dough up.  So, I started the dough.  Really?  Only one cup of flour for 7 tablespoons of butter and 1 cup of water?  Oops!  I wasn't supposed to put ALL of the butter in there.  I still think that the dough wouldn't have been pliable if I had gotten the amount of butter correct.  I ended up adding about 3/4 of a cup of extra flour until it started to pull away from the sides of the bowl and form somewhat of a ball.

     About this time, Jeff came into the kitchen and asked if the chicken that I had taken out of the fridge for tonight's dinner was done.  oops!  I hadn't even put it into the oven yet!  I had prepped it yesterday (Peruvian chicken with lime and garlic), and he was just sitting there on his little pan enomizer waiting for some kind of action.

     Thursday was hell at work.  The new company has been there all week, grilling me about our procedures and receivables and such.  Thursdays are my busiest days at work - I can barely catch my breath as it is, without some kind of auditor asking me for explicit details of accounts that I wrote off in 2010.  I am not sure where my priorities are supposed to be.  Do I continue to make sure all of the money comes in and is depositted in a timely manner and please my "current"employers, or do I jump through hoops to please the new company to make sure or further the belief that I may have a job when all is done and said?  To add to the stress, my co-workers of nine years are starting to abondon ship.  They are getting jobs at other distributorships and leaving without notice or even a goodbye!

     Anyway, Pam had let me know that she had been called out, and we were going to have to scrape by without her.  I had also asked her to assist in the search for tasso.  I had called Festivcal Foods, Byerly's, and Von Hansen's to see if any of them carried tasso.  None of them had heard of it, much less carried it.  They all offered up chorizo, and Festival asnd Lunds also suggested Andouille.  I think of Andouille as french-ish and chorizo as kind of Mexican bent.  Since cajuns are sort of french-ish themselves, I decided that Andoiuille was a good subsitute.  When Jeff picked me up at work, we headed there for just that thing. 

     I had everything prepped and ready for easy and early mealtime.  However, I had just brought home a case of whiskey and some fine wines from work, and we couldn't resist digging in to the whiskey while I told him abougt my day (and took care of the massive pile of dishes that had accumilated from last night's peruvian chicken and cuban rice and beans).  I didn't even start rolling out the dough until 7 o'clock!

     Assembling the calzones and the cheesy breads are sort of a blur.  I cannot help thinking about the day.  I feel like I am coming to the end of a bad marriage.  I don't want to be married to this entity any more, but I dont want to lose the kids.  I put the calzones together, and put them in the oven with a little egg-milk wash.  I assembled the cheese filled bread, and instead of mixing another egg with softened butter for the "wash", I just used the rest of the milk-egg wash I had used for the calzones  I figured that the little bundles had enough butter in them, since I had over-buttered the dough.

     Once I put the breads in the oven, I realized I hadn't set the timer for the calzones.  I guessed that they had been in there for approximately 5 minutes before I put the breads in, but I could have been mistaken.  After 10 minutes, I started smelling a warm, almost burnt aroma.  I peeked in the oven.  The calzones didn't look done yet, so I wasn't sure if the bottoms were burning, if the juices had leasked out onto my oven burner, or the extra egg wash I had put on the buns were burning onto the baking sheet or what.  I did notice that the buns (which were on the top rack of the oven) were starting to brown on top, even though they had only been in there for a little bit.  I switched the two pans, so the cheesy-breads were on the bottom.  I didn't realize how much wrist dexterity that would require.  Apparently, the calzones were really heavy or my left wrist is particularly weak.  I am going to go with the "heavy" explanation to maintain a certain level of self-esteem.

     Both the cheese buns and the calzones came out beautifully.  They were both golden brown and glistening.  I couldn't wait to dig in. 

     I started with the cheese bun, because I thought it would be overshadowed by the calzone.  I was wrong!  It was almost croissant like: it was buttery and flaky.  The cheese was gooey and warm and earthy.  It was rich and delicious, but not so rich that I didn't want another one when I was done with the first.

     The calzone was fabulous, too!  It was very flavorful.  I think I did eat the dishes in the correct order, because the calzone had a kick to it.  The sausage was spicy, and the tomato sauce was spicy.  The habenero sauce added to the party.  The ricotta was a nice contrast to the heat and kept me coming back for more.  The shrimp, however, got lost in the shuffle.  It added an intriguing texture, but the flavor of it was just completely overwhelmed by everything else.