Mini Calzones

Tonight I decided to make some calzones, because I had some leftover sauce with hunks of Italian sausage in it. Plus it has been a while since I made calzones or pizza, so it sounded like a good idea. But I thought it would be fun to make them smaller and more "hand-held friendly". Here is my recipe for pizza dough. It works well for me, sometimes I have a problem with getting the bottom nice and brown and crispy, but that could be a problem with my oven too.

Go-To Pizza Dough

1 tsp. honey
3/4 cup warm water
1 packet dry yeast
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1 1/2 (or more) all-purpose flour

• In a large bowl put honey and pour warm water over and mix with a fork until honey is dissolved in water. Add the yeast packet and mix thoroughly with hand, cleaning up sides of bowl, make sure all is incorporated. Let sit for 5 minutes until it is foamy
• Once the yeast is foamy add in your Parmesan cheese and 1 cup flour. Using a fork combine the cheese and flour into the yeast mixture until combined, will still be sticky and kinda wet at this point. Add in about a 1/2 cup more flour and start my mixing with fork, after a bit it gets less sticky and you can use your hands to finish kneading the dough.
• At this point, you'll know by the way the dough feels if you should add more flour or not. If it's still sticky you should add more until it feel uniform and smooth.
• Place bowl on top of the preheating oven covered with a towel and let rise for 30 minutes. Then you are ready to make pizza or calzones!

Normally I divide the dough in half and use each half to make one calzone, they are usually pretty huge. So I decided to divide the dough into fourths and made 4 smaller calzones.

I am sure you know how to make calzones but here's what I did. I put a small amount of sauce down and then a piece or two of the Italian sausage and some pepperoni topped it all with cheese and then folded over the top and pinched and folded the edges some nothing would ooze out. I make slits in the top with a knife to let steam escape and I bake them at 400 degrees for 15-17 minutes. I think I could have baked my longer tonight, they weren't as brown and I was hoping, but they were still delicious!


Eat, Drink and Be Merry!

-BellaRosa