Calzones Recipe by Ruth at Viva Veltoro

Hi MCO readers!  

My name is Ruth and I blog over at Viva Veltoro

and today I'm sharing a quick and easy recipe for calzones!

This is a super easy meal, especially for weeknights.

My hubby and I love calzones (or calzoni if you want to be all super fancy), 

they're easy to make & you can stuff them with whatever you have on hand... 

say it with me, leftovers.

There is also a little recipe towards the end for our pizza/calzone sauce if you're interested.

It's really yummy.

The players

Ingredients:

Store bought pizza dough (or make your own if you have spare time)

All purpose flour 

Olive oil

Mozzarella cheese

Ricotta Cheese (I like part-skim)

Pepperoni - or whatever filling you desire (leftover chicken, veggies... possibilities are endless)

Corn meal for dusting your pan if you have it available

Not pictured, sauce for dipping.

Sidenote: One ball of store bought dough should make at least 4 or more non-mammoth calzones.
For this recipe I'll be making 3 calzones so just adjust your portions accordingly.  

Directions

Take your dough out of the fridge and let it sit out for a few hours to rise.
{I've also made this without letting the dough rise too much and they still turn out okay}

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

Flour your workspace and set your dough out to portion it into individual servings.

Divide it into however many calzones you are going to make. 

I'm making 3 this time.

Roll out each portion.

Then set them aside to prepare your filling. 

Mix together 1.5 cups of Ricotta cheese and 1.5 cups of Mozzarella cheese.

If you are going to be adding other things now is the time to do it.

Chicken, onions, mushrooms, spinach, you name - go ahead and add it in there. 

Mr. V. just likes pepperoni so that is what we'll be adding. 

Lay your dough on a pan (lightly dust with cornmeal if you have some, or just use some extra flour).

Place 1/2 cup of filling on the dough like the photo below.

You'll want to leave space around the filling to close and seal your calzone.

{If you're making more calzones and your dough portion is smaller just use less filling} 

Add in your pepperoni then fold the dough in half to sandwich the filling in.

Press the edges together, either by rolling them up or just pressing really firmly.  

You could moisten them a bit to make them sticky as well.

{I'm not really a "sauce inside the calzone" kinda girl, but if you are, go ahead and add it now}

Here they are all together.  You can see I rolled the edges a bit.

Brush the tops of the calzone with olive oil (or butter).

This will give it a nice golden color.

Next, make small slits in the tops of the calzones so that steam can escape.

Pop them in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes. 

Check on them in about 8 minutes and you might want to rotate the pan. 

While the calzone are baking I usually prepare some sauce for dipping. 

This is optional - just use a jarred sauce if you're running short on time. 

Ingredients for the sauce (this is also the sauce we use for homemade pizza):

1 can San Marzano tomatoes

1/2 tsp salt

1 packet of splenda (or 1 tsp sugar)

1 tsp Oregano

1 tsp Garlic Powder

1 tsp Basil

Here's a close up of the most important ingredient.

Seriously, these tomatoes will change your life.

Splurge a little and buy them.

Cut open your San Marzano tomatoes and try to remove as many seeds as you can.

Then blend them in a food processor.

{Don't mind my teeny tiny food processor}

Pour them in a bowl and add in all of your wonderful spices.

Adjust the spices according to your taste - you may want less or more than us.

Simmer this on the stove for 5 or 10 minutes or just microwave a serving at a time.

Once 15 minutes have passed check your calzones. 

Our oven cooks pretty quickly and these were done in about 18 minutes.

That huge one in the middle was for Mr. V. 

Serve and enjoy!