Crazy For Calzones

A few months back we initiated our Thursday night pizza ritual and every Wednesday I whip up a batch of the overnight dough that we love. It’s fun having a tradition and I enjoy the challenge of creating new pizzas each week. Last week we skipped our pizza meal when we had company for dinner on Thursday evening. I woke up Friday with pizza on the brain and decided that calzones would be the perfect solution for that evening’s dinner.

I took a peak in the fridge and realized that I had plenty of good ingredients to fill the calzones. I decided one would be stuffed with sauteed peppers, zucchini, and mushrooms tossed together with ricotta and basil. The other, which turned out to be our favorite, held sauteed broccoli rabe, Italian sausage and ricotta. For the crust I used a recipe that was ready to go after an hour of rising. Go ahead and use store bought pizza dough and you’ll have delicious calzones for dinner in no time at all.

Quick Pizza Dough

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 envelope dry yeast
3/4 cup warm water
3 tablespoons olive oil

Preheat the oven to 500. If you have a pizza stone-place it in oven and let it heat up.

Mix flour, salt and sugar in bowl of mixer. Put yeast in warm water and stir to dissolve. Add yeast mixture to flour, along with 3 tablespoons olive oil and mix until dough comes together in a ball. Lightly dust a board with flour and turn dough onto board and knead dough until smooth. If the dough is too sticky, add a little more flour. Oil a bowl with a little olive oil and place dough in bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap, place in a warm spot and leave to rise for 1-1/2 hours.

When dough has risen, punch down, turn out on to floured board and divide dough into two pieces. Roll each piece into a circle. Spread your filling onto the bottom half of each circle. Fold dough over to make a crescent shape and pinch edges closed. I like to brush the dough with an egg wash. Make a few slits on top of the calzone to let the steam escape. Bake for about 10-12 minutes.

Enjoy with a big green salad. These are great leftover-pop them into your oven and warm up on your pizza stone and the crust will be nice and crispy again.

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