Calzones: Kale, Mushroom, and Black Olive
If you've been reading this blog at all, you know I like food that is self-contained. Little packages are SO SATISFYING. On top of that, who the heck doesn't like pizza? Or bread? Or cheese? Or mushrooms (okay, I know some people don't like mushrooms, but those people are dead to me).
To the point: I make calzones a hell of a lot. My master list of "you like to prep these foods during heavy work times" includes two line items: "calzones (BBQ chicken)" and "calzones (classic)." So of course, this week, I made neither of those, but rather went with a kale, mushroom, black olive, and mozzarella filling.
Don't @ me about how calzones aren't calzones without ricotta. I'm making a pizza dough, I'm stuffing it with stuff and calling it a calzone. Okay?
Planning!
Not unlike any other dumpling, calzones aren't hard, just a tad bit time consuming. Mostly because, as usual, the dough has a specific timeline, and the filling has to be cooled properly. Pizza dough takes about an hour and a half to rise, so I always start the filling immediately after the dough starts rising. It usually times out properly.
At this point, I don't use a recipe for calzones. I use a basic pizza dough recipe; I do add olive oil to the dough, which some people do not do. I have a good sense of how much filling will fit into a calzone if I divvy the two pounds of dough into 6 portions. If I'm using meat in the filling, I might divide the dough into 8 portions. I do honestly kind of wing it and adjust as I go; mostly importantly, I don't want to have ingredients left over, so I do check my stuff as I go...
Here's the nutritional breakdown from Fitbit...
Groceries I had on hand...
- flour
- sugar
- yeast
- salt
- olive oil
Groceries I had to buy...
- kale (.88lb @ $1.99/lb = $1.75)
- crimini mushrooms (10oz @ $2.49)
- black olives (2 can @ $1.59)
- mozzarella (8oz @ $3.99)
Total monies spent for the entire recipe: $9.82
Total monies spent for each of these 6 meals....
$1.64 per meal...
Cooking!
First, the dough.
Then, the filling.
Now, stuff three of those suckers and bake that first batch while you're putting together the other three. They only take 12 minutes to bake at 500F (bottom rack)!
Oh, freezer goodness, you will be such a good treat to pull out in a pinch.
