Goat Cheese Pizza Pockets

Since I won't be writing anything for about a week, I thought I'd give you one of the favorite things I made so far... Goat Cheese Pizza Pockets. I have to make them again and I will, but it's always quite the process... especially if I make fresh Mozzarella to go inside.

You can make this with meat or not. I used a meat sauce since I already had one frozen. I love them with a good meat sauce. I tried them later with just red sauce which is also good.

Start by making the dough which needs to rise. I used the pita bread recipe from the Peace Corps Morocco cookbook. There are no names used to credit an individual person for this recipe, so I'll just credit it to the cookbook (which is fantastic).

1 1/2 t dry yeast
1 t plus 2 t honey
1 c warm water
1 1/2 t salt
3 c flour
oil

Dissolve yeast in water with 1 t honey. Let stand for 5 minutes. Add remaining honey, flour and salt, mixing until well combined. Turn out and knead for 10 min. Add more flour if the dough is sticky. Oil a mixing bowl, place dough in it and lightly oil dough surface. Let rise in a warm place for 1 1/2 hours covered.

After that, you're supposed to divide it and roll them up a half inch thick. Instead, I divided them by however many "pockets" I wanted... I'll get back to this part later.

While the dough is rising, make the sauce. For a meat sauce, I cook the meat in a little bit of oil and add it to the sauce after it cooks together for a bit.

For a good sauce, I saute garlic and onions in olive oil until the onions are slightly softer and the garlic is just starting to get brown (if you let it get too brown it will start having kind of a burnt taste after it cooks awhile... some people like this- like the brown onions on bagels, but I don't prefer it for a sauce). Then I add tomato paste and let it break down for a minute. After that, I add tomatoes (peeled if you don't like the peels), and let them break down for a few. I generally use just a little tomato paste and lots of tomatoes. Add oregano, basil, salt and pepper as you go. I like a touch of heat so I'll add some hot red pepper or dried crushed red pepper. I let everything meld together for quite a while. If it gets too thick add a little water. You don't want it too thin for these pizza pockets though.

When the dough is ready, split it into however many portions you want to make (though you don't want to make them too big. Maybe make 6 or more with this amount of dough). Roll them to about a quarter of an inch, or maybe slightly thinner. I put red ball cheese(Edam or whatever else you might want... this is what we have in Morocco), then the meat sauce, then a few chunks of goat cheese in the center. I wrapped the right and the left side over the top overlapping, and then folded up the ends pinching them (so they look like a pizza pocket).

I lightly greased a cookie sheet with olive oil and placed all the pockets on it. I preheated the oven to about 200 degrees C... not very hot because you want the insides to get hot as the dough bakes. When they are browned on the top, flip them over for a few minutes. When the other side is slightly browned, they should be finished... careful, they will be hot on the inside... but SO GOOD!!!