Last night I made a very tasty dinner.  Italian Meatball Hoagie Braids.

Sounds good, right?

Tasted great.

However, making it became an adventure.

First, I have learned from sad experience, that you do not try to bake crescent roll dough on a bare cookie sheet.  I don’t care how much you grease it.  Those fuckers are going to burn.  Instead, you line your cookie sheet with parchment paper.  No PAM or other greasing required, and your crescent roll dough browns beautifully.

Next, the recipe calls for either 2 cans of refrigerated crescent roll dough or 2 cans of sheet crescent dough.

Thanks to my inattention and somebody putting stuff where it doesn’t belong at the supermarket.  I had one of each.

Okay.  No big deal.  I can take the sheet and cut it into the appropriate size rectangles.

Which I did.

Then I laid it out in the usual “sun burst” circle.

Wrong.

These are separate sandwiches – not a circle.

Okay.

Pull all the dough apart into separate rectangles.

(Thank God (which I don’t believe in) I had not yet pressed the rectangles into each other to form the base.)

Put meatballs (cut in half) along each rectangle, sopped with basil tomato sauce and cheese (the recipe calls for mozzarella, I used a 5-cheese Italian blend).  The recipe did not call for a liberal sprinkling with garlic powder – but I did that anyway because – garlic, right?

Now.  You are supposed to take the sides of each rectangle and cut the sides into strips to braid them.

Uh-huh.

I tried it with one.

It was not happening.

The sides of the rectangle were way to short.  I ended up with big honking flaps of dough at each end and little stubby strips along the side.

So …. I just folded it all up around the filling, brushed with egg, sprinkled with grated Parmesan and baked it as directed.

Tasted great.

Just not camera ready.

And you want to know how much I care?

Not. One. Bit.

NOT WHAT MINE LOOKED LIKE!