Simple Down Home Calzone

We make pizzas with store bought dough regularly, but I didn’t think Michael would be very keen on a pizza without mozzarella, which we happened to be out of. So I decided to make a homemade calzone instead. Folded over and sealed up, I was sure he wouldn’t miss it. You can make all kinds of simple meals by using ingredients you have on hand.

First off, I let a pound of store bought pizza dough rest at room temperature while I heated the oven and my pizza stone to 500. You can use a cookie sheet if you don’t have a pizza stone.

Zero waste cooking led me to some ricotta and roasted cauliflower I wanted to finish. So, after letting the food processor chop up the cauliflower, I mixed it with an equal amount of ricotta and a couple of cloves of minced garlic. Hooray for sneaking in more veggies! Spread that combination onto one half of the rolled out crust. What else could I fill this calzone with? I had some bell peppers and mushrooms in the freezer. So after sautéing some sliced onions in olive oil, I added the peppers and mushrooms to the skillet and cooked until tender. Seasoned with salt. Cooking without a recipe allows you to create an endless variety of simple meals everyone will love.

Homemade Sauce For the Calzone

Next I decided to make a quick and simple sauce to top the calzone. Sautéed some chopped onions and a couple of cloves of minced garlic in olive oil before adding some tomatoes from a can. Broke up some of the tomato chunks a little with a potato masher and simmered briefly until I liked the texture.

A quick note on canned tomatoes here: quality is very important. I use a lot of canned tomatoes and I have learned that they are not all created equal. I would rather pay a little more for organic, ripe canned tomatoes without any extra stuff added. As far as the style is concerned, whole peeled are very versatile. Chopped ones are great when you want them to hold their shape a bit.

Rolling Out Dough and Baking

Michael is the master of rolling out the dough, but I got a head start on it for him because I didn’t think it needed to be perfectly round or very thin for this meal. Once he saw what I was doing, though, he took over and tried to correct my work…with limited success. Hey, I was going to top this with sauce, so it didn’t have to look perfect. He also remembered to prick it with a fork to let the steam escape while cooking.

After folding over and sealing up the edges, bake the calzone for 13-15 minutes or until crust is golden. Top with sauce and fresh basil to serve.

Again, cooking without a recipe is the goal for these simple meals. As with pizza, the sky’s the limit on what you can create. Develop your own intuition in the kitchen, using ingredients you have available. Below is what I had on hand and used for this Veggie Calzone. Have fun!

Ingredients:

• pizza dough
• ricotta cheese
• roasted cauliflower
• garlic
• bell peppers
• onions
• mushrooms
• canned tomatoes
• olive oil
• basil

Learn how to make our favorite pizza without red sauce next.