Calzone

I tried making homemade calzone the other night. I used a hodgepodge of recipes to do it, and they didn't turn out exactly right...or at least not the way you think it should. I still liked them...a lot in fact, especially the inside, but Brent said that they are strange, and while OK, not worth the time and effort.

I started out with the dough for crust. I wanted to make a whole wheat crust but the recipe called for wheat germ and I didn't have any. So I used a recipe that calls for all purpose flour, but used the rule that you can substitute up to half of the flour with whole wheat and then just add a little extrra water. I also used pizza dough yeast, but then still let it rise.
So here are the ingredients:
1.5 cups whole wheat flour
1.25 cups all purpose flour
1 pkg yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
about 3/4 cup hot water (about 110F, not too hot so you don't kill the yeast)
1Tbsp olive oil

In a small bowl combine the yeast, sugar and 1/4 cup water, leave in a warm place until frothy. (It ought to get frothy within 5-10 minutes. If it doesn't get frothy within 15-20 minutes, you may have made the water too hot and killed the yeast or you might just have yeast that is too old...yes, I know both of these answers from experience) Combine flour and salt in a medium bowl. Add yeast mix to flour mix along with the oil and remaining water. Mix to a soft dough. (With the whole wheat flour, I had to add quite a bit more water, but I don't know how much...I just kept adding a little at a time until all the ingredients came together as a dough.) Knead on a floured surface 10 minutes until smooth. Place in a greased bowl, cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size (about 45 minutes)
Punch dough down and knead briefly. Pinch off a ball of dough and roll into a 6-8 inch circle, depending on how big you want your calzone.


Place fillings in the center, fold over and seal the edges with a fork.

Place on a greased baking sheet, brush calzone with olive oil and bake in a 450F oven for about 15 minutes or until golden brown.

You see how the cheese is oozing out of the one on the bottom? Well the calzon on the left, yes, the one that is cut off a little, had A LOT of cheese oozing out...and when I took it off the baking sheet, that cheese separated from the calzon, so I ate it...yes just the little chunk of cheese...and BOY WAS IT YUMMY!

Now for the filling ingredients. I got a Pioneer Woman cookbook for Christmas and she has a recipe for calzone in it. I sort of used her cheese mix and then just added other stuff. I used 1 cup ricotta cheese, .75 cup shredded mozzerella, and .75 cup shredded colby/monterey jack and mixed them all up. Then I added frozen chopped spinach that had been thawed and drained. I also cooked sweet italian sausage with onions and garlic, then drained the grease and added some of that on top of the cheese and spinach, I also added fresh sliced mushrooms. I tried tomatos, but they made it too watery. We used pizza sauce for dipping.

Overall, Samantha ate the ones that didn;t have any spinach, Jacob loved it all and inhaled it, Brent said it was OK, and I thought they were really yummy, even though the crust was a little crunchy instead of being like bread. I might need to work on the the dough a little, but I think the rest of it was just right! :)