This one’s pretty involved. The recipe is as follows:

1) Make plans to go to the zoo with your parents and nephew on a Sunday. Emphasize that you’d like to be home in time for the Jets game.

2) Go to the zoo. How awesome are elephants?

3) Before you head home, stop by your parents’ car to pick up the bag full of awesome fried Italian things your mom bought for you at her local farmer’s market, and the Tupperware container full of pizza sauce she made so you have something to dip the fried things in.

4) Go home and fry those bastards up. My wife heated hers in the toaster oven but screw that. I heated about an inch of oil in a big pot and threw some in. I went with four mozzarella sticks, three fried artichoke hearts and two “fried mini calzones.” With the sauce on the side, of course.

Here they are:

The so-called calzones are the big winner here. And I imagine you could figure out how to make them at home pretty easily. They’re just large shells (as in the pasta shape) stuffed with ricotta, mozzarella and ham, presumably dipped in egg then rolled in bread crumbs and fried. And they’re awesome.

I know most of the time when I eat a calzone I think, “man, this tastes way too healthy.” To think, all this time I could have been frying them!

I don’t know that it’s actually proper to call these calzones, since to me the word calzone implies there’ll be pizza dough involved. But whatever they are, they’re great. There’s a nice, seasoned crunchiness to the outside from the breadcrumbs, and then of course the soft, creamy ricotta and chewy mozzarella on the inside. I was not expecting the ham, but hey, bonus ham!

Oh, and the mozzarella sticks and fried artichoke hearts were pretty great too.