I'd never made calzones before last night. It was Patrick's idea. Faced with half a container of leftover ricotta cheese, I turned to him for inspiration. Calzones. Brilliant.And guess what? They're a piece of cake. Start with some pizza dough, stuff in some cheese and veggies, bake on a cookie sheet. Pour some tomato sauce on top, dinner. Cool.
Broccoli-Cheese CalzonesDough:
1 cup water
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil
3 cups flour (I used 1/2 whole wheat)
1 tbsp yeast
Put ingredients into your bread machine, set it to dough, and walk away. Or, mix and knead by hand to make your dough, and let it rise one hour.
Once the dough has risen, punch it down and divide it into four more-or-less-equal pieces. Flatten each piece into a round, and let it rest for ten minutes. After resting, stretch each piece of dough into a roughly pizza-crust shape, about 6-8 inches across. You can use a rolling pin, or toss your dough in the air while singing Dean Martin. When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore...
A word of caution: do not let your dough get too thin, or one of your calzones may spontaneously vomit its contents all over the bottom of your oven. I speak from experience. You are forewarned.
Anyway, that's the dough part.
Filling:
4 cups broccoli florets
1 cup pesto of your choice
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 cup grated mozzarella
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Put your broccoli in a microwave-safe bowl, and pour in about an inch of water. Microwave on high for two minutes, or until broccoli is steamy and bright green. Discard the water. Add the pesto. Mix well, and spoon 1/4 of the broccoli mixture on one side of each of the four dough rounds. Top with ricotta and mozzarella. Fold the dough over the filling, and press it down on the other side. A little bit of water helps it to stick.
Place your calzones on an oiled baking sheet, and slide 'em into the oven for about fifteen minutes. After fifteen minutes, carefully slide them off of the baking sheet and onto the oven racks, as close to the bottom of your oven as you can get. This helps make the bottom crispy. Bake another ten minutes.
Remove from oven, and eat, topped with sauce of your choice.
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8 comments:
Oooh, I like your filling ideas! My husband and I used to make these (with boring fillings) in ridiculously huge batches when we were in university. We would freeze a million of them, and take them with us for lunches. Yum!
I also forgot to mention that I love the idea of making sure the bottom gets crispy, too - very smart! :)
wow, its surprisingly easy! Nice!
Sherri-- I learned the crispy-bottom trick from a cookbook called Moosewood Celebrates, for pizza. It works for calzones, too!
I'm just beginning to grasp the frozen-calzone possibilities, as well. Yay.
the thing i find annoying about calzones is that they take twice as long to cook than pizza, so i think i'll just stick with pizza...essentially the same thing but gets on the table sooner!
Julia-- I think it's the portability that's won me over.
I'm hungry now. Looks yummy!
okay i actually had to go make a sandwich after looking at this. omg.
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