Bread,  Food,  Vegetables

Calzones & Dance

November 23, 2010 /

I have great news! I auditioned for a professional dance company in Longmeadow, Mass and they want me to dance with them! AHHH! So excited! I have been a dancer since I was 2 years old and ever since I graduated from college it has been hard to find a modern dance company. I am so happy to be dancing again, I have missed it so much! The only bad part is that the rehearsals are 9:30pm on Mondays (sometimes Sunday) nights. Phew! Makes for a long evening….I normally don’t get home until just before midnight. Getting home so late last night has made me a little groggy this morning…and I have 2 big presentations to my directors today at work…it never ends does it? haha

I do have a great recipe to share with you along with my great news. I decided that I wanted to make calzones from scratch. Btdubs, what is the difference between a calzone and a stromboli? That may be a very silly question, but I honestly don’t know. haha

Anyways, so I decided to make the bread for the calzone from scratch which was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. The only suggestion I have on that is to prepare ahead of time. The dough needs to rest/rise for about 2 1/2 hours after you knead it. Let’s get to it!

Ingredients for Dough (could be used for pizza too!):

  • 3 2/3 cup bread flour
  • two 1/4 oz envelopes instant yeast
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 1/2 cups tepid water
  • 2 tbsp olive oil, plus more for the bowl

Combine your yeast, flour, and salt into a large bowl. Make a well in the center and add your oil and water. Stir to make a soft dough. Knead on a slightly floured work surface for about 10 minutes, until smooth and elastic. 

See how pretty it looks?

Roll the dough into a ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl and turn to completely coat the dough. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let stand in a warm area until the dough has doubled in size.

 

 

 

 

 

This what the dough looks like after one hour of resting.

After the dough has rested for 2 1/2 hours place onto a floured surface and divide into 4 equal portions…OK so, let me warn you this recipe called to divide in 4 but I really could have divided into 8 and had more reasonable portions. They ended up being HUGE! haha

Ingredients for Calzone filling:

  • 1 head of Broccoli
  • Fresh Spinach (10 oz package)
  • 1 green bell pepper
  • 1 red bell pepper
  • 10oz of mushrooms
  • 2-3 cloves garlic
  • 1/2 an onion
  • Parsley (as much or little as you like)
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 1 can tomato paste
  • 1 cup mozzarella
  • 1 tablespoon red pepper flake
  • Olive oil
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Throw your garlic into your pan with some olive oil and let the garlic brown up nice. Once it has done that put your chopped onion into the pan as well with your red pepper flake.

Yum, there is nothing better to me than the smell of garlic cooking in a pan. DELLLISH!

After the onions have started to sweat, place your other veggies into the pan and cook them until they are tender.

Set your vegetables off to the side to cool down while you start to roll out your dough for the calzones. It doesn’t have to completely cool, but just so you can handle it. Also! If you use spinach and mushrooms like I did, try and drain as much of the excess liquid as possible. If you don’t, your calzone will get all runny and icky.

Take one of your 4 portions of dough that you divided earlier and roll out into about a 9″ round. This dough is awesome! It is so soft and super easy to work with.

After you have done that, in a bowl to the side beat one egg (this will act as your glue when you fold the dough onto itself). Spread your tomato past onto the round leaving about 1/2″ border around the edges all the way around. Divide your filling over the paste, then top it with mozzarella and parsley. Season this generously with pepper.

*notice: this one has pepperoni on it. I personally was happy with just the vegetables but sometimes you have to make exceptions for those you are cooking for* 😉

Brush the exposed edges of the dough with the beaten egg.

Fold over to enclose the filling, pressing the edges together firmly with your fingers. Use a fork to finish the seal on the edges. Place on a baking sheet and brush lightly with the remaining olive oil.

Place in the oven and let cook for 20-25 minutes or until the edges  are crisp and golden brown. Serve these puppies hot!

These were seriously delicious! It was one of those things where I had to pat myself on the back because they were so awesome. The best part was, it made leftovers. Which means I had some lunches ready to go for my work week. Love that!

Turkey day is almost here! Hope you are all having fun preparing and making plans! Happy Tuesday (/Thursday because I have Thursday and Friday off!)

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