Aunt Katie's Calzones

Aunt Katie made the best fried chicken. To me, no one ever could duplicate her crispy, juicy fried chicken. I watched her dip each piece of chicken in what seemed like plain old flour, salt, and pepper. Yet, mine or anyone else’s ever came out like hers; since it’s a mystery I can't post her technique. Aunt Katie came to our house once to cook us dinner since my Mom was in the hospital. She made us real fried chicken, not Shake and Bake, like my Mom baked in the oven. Dad also had her make her famous Calzones, also fried. We kept the olive oil vendors in business that week! She usually only made Calzones at Christmas time but I think she felt sorry for us that week since neither Dad or I could cook.

It is sometimes very difficult to write down the family recipes because so many of them were never really written down or measured. Meals were prepared from memory or whatever ingredients were available in the cupboard. For example in the recipe below; 3 or 4 cans of chickpeas, which Aunt Katie and Gramma called ceccies. Or, Large Coconut Cookies? What brand of cookies is another mystery. I saw Aunt Katie use those dry, square coconut cookies, like Voortman’s. So, just use the kind you currently like to eat. And, my favorite notation "Use judgement in mixing dough." If you never watched Aunt Katie mixing the dough ,how would you know what should be the perfect consistency?

The picture I inserted is of Aunt Katie helping me get dressed for my Confirmation. Aunt Katie passed away this year; she was 93 and this is my favorite memory of her. When I asked her to be my Sponsor, she danced around the kitchen table singing, "I'm gonna be Dorothy's sponsor, I'm gonna be Dorothy's sponsor." Check out the red beanie on my head!


Italian Filled Cookies (Chocolate Calzones)
Filling:
3 or 4 cans of chickpeas (save water for filling)
½ box raisins
10 Large Coconut Cookies
2 cups sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ground cloves
1 cup dark cocoa
1 extra large chocolate bar (esp. Hershey)
Juice from 1 or 2 oranges
Dough:
10 cups flour
2 eggs
½ large jar honey (or 1 cup sugar) – prefer honey
1 ½ cup Crisco
½ bottle beer
½ cup lukewarm chickpea water

Note: Use judgement in mixing dough.
Roll dough and cut strips of dough. Put 1 tsp. of filling on dough. Fold over dough and press seam using a ravioli cutter to cut into squares. Fry in deep oil until golden . Sprinkle with powdered sugar.