Calzone recipe
Did I already post this? Google couldn't find it. I just posted it on Askville.
I might as well start off with a really simple one that I made up myself. I've been using it for at least twenty years now. It's a very flexible recipe, so you can make all sorts of changes.
I'll say this up front: this is NOT authentic Italian cooking. On the plus side, you can make a good large meal for less than $1.50 per person. And you can make 8-12 servings in just an hour or two. They keep well, and you can make them individually different for variety, so this can feed a small family for several days!
Pete's Calzones
Ingredients:
- 2 1-pound balls of pizza dough (whole wheat is healthier and adds an interesting texture to the results - we prefer it). You should be able to find these at any market for around $1 each. Fresh is better, but frozen is fine.
- 2 pounds of lean ground beef. Depending on how much you like meat, you might want to increase this to two and a half pounds.
- 1 small can tomato paste
- 1 to 2 medium cans of tomatoes, diced, petite-diced, or crushed (in order of preference). We sometimes use tomatoes that my wife cans with her mother.
- dried minced onion to taste (somewhere between 1-3 tablespoons, at a guess). Alternatively, 1 small onion, diced - but why bother? It's much easier to go with dried onions.
- Salt and pepper to taste.
Optional: cheese, olives, mushrooms, garlic (or garlic powder) and pretty much anything else you can dream of putting on a pizza.
Crumble and brown the meat well with the onions. Drain the fat.
Place the meat in a large bowl. Add the tomato paste, diced/crushed tomatoes, salt, and pepper. Personally I add about 1 tsp of ground black pepper, and perhaps a tablespoon of salt - but your taste may differ.
Mix well. If you have some other ingredients you want to add to all of the calzones, now would be the time to do it. Garlic or garlic powder make a very big change in the flavor, by the way. But please note that you can easily add different ingredients to each of the calzones individually, instead. Which can be fun.
Smooth the meat mixture in the bowl and use a knife or spoon to draw straight lines across it. Evenly divide the mixture into as many portions as the number of calzones you're making.
Get a large cookie sheet, 13x9 or larger. It needs to have edges to keep anything from dripping off. Line it with a sheet of aluminum foil, unless you have several sheets to use and like washing pans. Lightly spray the foil (or pan) with no-stick cooking spray.
Heat the oven to 375 or whatever temperature is recommended on the pizza dough wrappers.
Wash your hands well. Make sure you have a clean area to work on; it doesn't have to be very large, perhaps one square foot of counter space or a decent-sized cutting board.
Now, if you like to roll out dough, you can. Or if you have a machine that does it, you might as well use it. Personally, I eventually started getting really tired of rolling out dough; it makes a huge mess and it's a lot of work. It's much easier to put a little flour down on a small surface, and use a large knife to cut a ball of dough into equal portions. Cutting it into quarters makes large calzones; cutting it into eights makes pretty small ones. I've often found that cutting it into sixths works very well, although it's a little trickier than fourths or eighths. On the other hand if you're old enough to use a knife and oven, you should be able to handle sixths.
Take a piece of dough, dust it lightly with a little flour, and stretch it out with your hands. You'll find that it's kind of fun to stretch; you can pretend that you're one of those stereotyped pizza chefs in corny shows on TV, whirling the dough around in the air (which actually isn't a bad technique - but be careful not to drop the dough!). Stretch the dough into a roughly circular or rectangular shape (triangles are okay too).
Place the dough on the working surface. You may need to stretch it out a little more. Place a portion of the meat mixture in the center of the dough. If you want to customize the calzone with some other ingredients, now's the time to do it. By making them all different, you can add an element of mystery and surprise to your dinners! Or you can mark different calzones with a knife before baking them, if you're not the adventurous type. :D
Once the filling is ready, carefully fold the edges of the dough up around it. Make sure the edges are sealed by pressing them well, and then use the tines of a fork to press down again around all the edges - you don't want the calzones to pop open!
Now that you've sealed the calzone, you can carefully stretch it out again to the size that you want. When it looks right, place it on the baking pan. Take a sharp knife and carefully make three or more small holes in the calzone, spaced apart. If you want to mark individualized calzones, you can certainly make more holes, or make them in different patterns.
Prepare enough calzones to fill up all available baking sheets. Personally, I do one sheet at a time, and re-use it; it's easy to slide the foil off the sheet along with the calzones, and the sheet cools down quickly enough to put a new sheet of foil on before long.
Bake for about 20 minutes, until they look lightly browned (i.e. done) or for whatever time is indicated on the pizza dough wrapper. When done, they can be eaten warm or cooled and wrapped in plastic wrap or baggies. They can be refrigerated for several days, or frozen. To re-heat a frozen calzone, you can either microwave them (which works perfectly well, but the crust might be a little chewy) or put them in an oven or toaster oven at 350 for 10-15 minutes.
For the basic meat mixture without any additions, I find that potato chips and dill or bread & butter pickles are an outstanding (although unhealthy) side dish. As a bonus, the chips can be used to scoop up any of the filling that might happen to fall out onto your plate while eating.
I might as well start off with a really simple one that I made up myself. I've been using it for at least twenty years now. It's a very flexible recipe, so you can make all sorts of changes.
I'll say this up front: this is NOT authentic Italian cooking. On the plus side, you can make a good large meal for less than $1.50 per person. And you can make 8-12 servings in just an hour or two. They keep well, and you can make them individually different for variety, so this can feed a small family for several days!
Pete's Calzones
Ingredients:
- 2 1-pound balls of pizza dough (whole wheat is healthier and adds an interesting texture to the results - we prefer it). You should be able to find these at any market for around $1 each. Fresh is better, but frozen is fine.
- 2 pounds of lean ground beef. Depending on how much you like meat, you might want to increase this to two and a half pounds.
- 1 small can tomato paste
- 1 to 2 medium cans of tomatoes, diced, petite-diced, or crushed (in order of preference). We sometimes use tomatoes that my wife cans with her mother.
- dried minced onion to taste (somewhere between 1-3 tablespoons, at a guess). Alternatively, 1 small onion, diced - but why bother? It's much easier to go with dried onions.
- Salt and pepper to taste.
Optional: cheese, olives, mushrooms, garlic (or garlic powder) and pretty much anything else you can dream of putting on a pizza.
Crumble and brown the meat well with the onions. Drain the fat.
Place the meat in a large bowl. Add the tomato paste, diced/crushed tomatoes, salt, and pepper. Personally I add about 1 tsp of ground black pepper, and perhaps a tablespoon of salt - but your taste may differ.
Mix well. If you have some other ingredients you want to add to all of the calzones, now would be the time to do it. Garlic or garlic powder make a very big change in the flavor, by the way. But please note that you can easily add different ingredients to each of the calzones individually, instead. Which can be fun.
Smooth the meat mixture in the bowl and use a knife or spoon to draw straight lines across it. Evenly divide the mixture into as many portions as the number of calzones you're making.
Get a large cookie sheet, 13x9 or larger. It needs to have edges to keep anything from dripping off. Line it with a sheet of aluminum foil, unless you have several sheets to use and like washing pans. Lightly spray the foil (or pan) with no-stick cooking spray.
Heat the oven to 375 or whatever temperature is recommended on the pizza dough wrappers.
Wash your hands well. Make sure you have a clean area to work on; it doesn't have to be very large, perhaps one square foot of counter space or a decent-sized cutting board.
Now, if you like to roll out dough, you can. Or if you have a machine that does it, you might as well use it. Personally, I eventually started getting really tired of rolling out dough; it makes a huge mess and it's a lot of work. It's much easier to put a little flour down on a small surface, and use a large knife to cut a ball of dough into equal portions. Cutting it into quarters makes large calzones; cutting it into eights makes pretty small ones. I've often found that cutting it into sixths works very well, although it's a little trickier than fourths or eighths. On the other hand if you're old enough to use a knife and oven, you should be able to handle sixths.
Take a piece of dough, dust it lightly with a little flour, and stretch it out with your hands. You'll find that it's kind of fun to stretch; you can pretend that you're one of those stereotyped pizza chefs in corny shows on TV, whirling the dough around in the air (which actually isn't a bad technique - but be careful not to drop the dough!). Stretch the dough into a roughly circular or rectangular shape (triangles are okay too).
Place the dough on the working surface. You may need to stretch it out a little more. Place a portion of the meat mixture in the center of the dough. If you want to customize the calzone with some other ingredients, now's the time to do it. By making them all different, you can add an element of mystery and surprise to your dinners! Or you can mark different calzones with a knife before baking them, if you're not the adventurous type. :D
Once the filling is ready, carefully fold the edges of the dough up around it. Make sure the edges are sealed by pressing them well, and then use the tines of a fork to press down again around all the edges - you don't want the calzones to pop open!
Now that you've sealed the calzone, you can carefully stretch it out again to the size that you want. When it looks right, place it on the baking pan. Take a sharp knife and carefully make three or more small holes in the calzone, spaced apart. If you want to mark individualized calzones, you can certainly make more holes, or make them in different patterns.
Prepare enough calzones to fill up all available baking sheets. Personally, I do one sheet at a time, and re-use it; it's easy to slide the foil off the sheet along with the calzones, and the sheet cools down quickly enough to put a new sheet of foil on before long.
Bake for about 20 minutes, until they look lightly browned (i.e. done) or for whatever time is indicated on the pizza dough wrapper. When done, they can be eaten warm or cooled and wrapped in plastic wrap or baggies. They can be refrigerated for several days, or frozen. To re-heat a frozen calzone, you can either microwave them (which works perfectly well, but the crust might be a little chewy) or put them in an oven or toaster oven at 350 for 10-15 minutes.
For the basic meat mixture without any additions, I find that potato chips and dill or bread & butter pickles are an outstanding (although unhealthy) side dish. As a bonus, the chips can be used to scoop up any of the filling that might happen to fall out onto your plate while eating.