Happy Lunes de Aguas! Caterpillar bread

Once upon a time Owl lived as a missionary in Salamanca, where the Monday after Easter week finds the city picnicking on the banks of the River Tormes. The reasons for doing so are long past (thank goodness), but we have adopted this lovely tradition of a spring picnic by water. Owl remembers walking with the rest of the town down to the river, past university buildings and farms. Everyone eats hornazo, a bready meat pie with an ornate top crust. We usually make calzones, an Italian relative of hornazo, and a convenient individual-sized picnic food.

This year we found this recipe for caterpillar bread, elegant long stuffed breads that resemble caterpillars. We used the dough and shaping instructions, but filled it with mozzarella, tomato sauce, and ground beef (because that is what we had). The dough is easy and fun to work with. I was tempted to default to my regular pizza dough, but I am glad I did not. I doubled the recipe. I don't know if I miscalculated, but I had to add more flour (1 cup for the doubled recipe) than it called for to get it to the right consistency.

Dough recipe

Our improvised filling (for 10 caterpillar breads, or double the dough recipe):
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2-3 cloves garlic
1 glug olive oil
1 14-oz can crushed tomatoes
1 lb. ground beef
spices to taste: basil, oregano, salt, pepper
ground caterpillars (just kidding)

Saute onion in olive oil until tender. Add garlic and cook until fragrant. (23 seconds) Add tomatoes and spices. Simmer until reduced by half at least. You want this fairly dry or it will split the dough when cooking.

In separate pan, brown the ground beef. Add it to tomato sauce.

Use these excellent instructions to roll, fill, and shape.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

What we thought: Delicious--and fun to eat. It is easy to segment these breads, like an orange. The owl-cats devoured them. The almost-two-year-old loved that it was caterpillar bread. Next time we may lessen the elegance by decorating with sliced olives for eyes. We will also read The Very Hungry Caterpillar.