Friday, June 19, 2009

Homemade Calzones

I had some sausage leftover from the wontons I needed to use up. My first thought was pizza, but then I was feeling a little adventurous so decided to tackle a calzone!

To start, I made Biz's pizza dough recipe. I love that warm, yeasty smell!

While I was making that, Johnny browned up about 3/4 pound of Italian sausage in a skillet.

I cut up 1 small head of broccoli, 1 green pepper and half of an onion and cooked them off in a skillet with a small amount of olive oil.

To assemble the calzones, we rolled out the dough just as you would for a pizza - about 12" across and maybe 1/4" - 3/8" thick. First, I spread about 1/4 cup of mozzarella cheese on half of the dough, then topped with half the veggies and some of the sausage, followed by another 1/4 cup mozzarella on top.

Then, I folded the dough over and creased, pressing with fork prongs. They baked in a 375° convect oven (which I believe is 400° normal) for about 30 minutes. In the future, I might go a little shorter because they were pretty crisp.

I was SO excited because the bottom came out crunchy, I thought it'd be a gooey, doughy mess!

Here's Johnny's, just out of the oven, cut in half to show you the inside. We dunked them in Prego and they far exceeded my expectations!

Announcement time!

If you haven't already, please vote for my brother. The extended deadline date (boo!) doubled the candidates, and he still needs to remain in the top 50 for another week!! He's held on strong thus far, I'd hate to see it slip away last minute!

And you seriously need to go check out Michelle's giant give-away at Lucky Taste Buds! An environmentally friendly lunch bag STUFFED with dozens of goodies! She's one generous lady!

13 comments:

Laura said...

those look great! I like the idea of dipping in sauce :)

Justin said...

those look killer. i made pizza dough, but I can't explain why i've never once made calzones.

Sweetie Pie said...

I love calzones and I really love creative ways to use leftovers. Those look awesome! I'm glad they were crispy on the bottom. I've made some gooey calzones before, and crispy is definitely better! Yum!

I hope you are having a great weekend!

Anonymous said...

Your calzones look amazing!! Love all the veggies too - not sure I could convince Tony to eat them though!

Happy Sunday!

A@ Please Don't Eat Me! said...

looks amazing!!

im glad i could give you your first blogger award!! let me know if you cant get the picture though- i noticed that i could see it on my desktop but couldnt download the pic from my laptop- weird!!!
: )

Jenn@slim-shoppin said...

That looks great Christina!

I'll go vote again for your brother now! :0)

Anonymous said...

Looks SO good. I love calzones, and I think the dough is the most important part here.
And your bro has my vote! :-)

Marta said...

Looks like you did a great job here! That dough does looks crunchy at the bottom, perfect!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the advice on the camera, Christina! I'll be looking up on the Canon Powershots. :-)

Brooke said...

Holy shiz, this looks absolutely amazing! I was out to dinner the other night and was SO close of ordering a calzone! I love all the chewy dough stuffed with cheeese! ahhhh LIFE

Christina said...

Oh, and just for the record we only ate 1/2 of the calzones that night for dinner. The leftovers we wrapped in foil and re-heated at a later time in a warm oven, keeping them in the foil packet. This let them come up to temperature, without getting dried out and were just as yummy as the first time!

The Desperate Cook said...

Wow!! That looks so good that I want a piece.

Jordan said...

can't wait to try this it looks so good and best of all it's gonna be made by christina the fabulous herself,BEASTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!