Calzones

I found a couple of recipes for homemade calzones in my two Betty Crocker Cookbooks that I have. One of them is from the 80's, while the other one is a brand-new one. I kinda mixed the two together and this is what I came up with.

Ingredients

• 1 can of pre-made pizza dough
• Pizza toppings
• Pepperoni
• Sausage
• Mushrooms
• Black Olives
• Onions
• Etc.
• Mozzarella cheese, shredded
• Ricotta cheese
• Pizza seasoning
• 1 egg, lightly beaten

Before they went into the oven

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350°F
• Divide the dough into 2. Make them as round as possible.
• Put the pizza toppings, mozzarella and ricotta cheese on one half of the circles, keeping a 1/4" edge on the outside.
• Sprinkle the pizza seasoning over toppings/cheese
• Fold the empty side over on top of the filled side. Pinch or use a fork to put them together. Make sure the seam is tightly sealed.
• Brush the egg on top of the now sealed calzone. Lightly sprinkle some more pizza seasoning on top of the calzone.
• Put into the oven and cook for about 20 minutes or until the crust is golden brown. Don't be surprised if they grow a bit.
• Take out and serve with the sauce of your preference. We had marinara. :)

All done!

My Take

I was very amazed at how easy these were to make. Whenever I go to Old Chicago, I always order their calzones, but now I can make them in the comfort of my own home without high prices!

You can put the sauce inside the calzone, but I didn't want it too messy as well as (I believe) traditional calzones don't have the sauce in them. Also, make sure you're careful not to fill them up too much, otherwise the dough might split and yeah....that wouldn't be too good.

So, there ya (finally) have it. My calzone recipe. Feel free to leave comments about what works for you and any questions you have. I promise I won't take a week to reply! :)

Cheesy Breadsticks

I totally made this recipe up after Dylan pointed out a bag of frozen ones at Wal-Mart. I said I could make them, so here is what I came up with. They are pretty easy to make and taste pretty good too!

Ingredients

• Can of pre-made pizza dough
• 1 package of string cheese

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350°F
• Open can of pizza dough and unroll it.
• Cut string cheese in half, and then cut them in half lengthwise.
• Place pieces of cheese on dough, leaving about 1/4-1/2 inch between each piece.
• Cut the dough around each piece; should be a rectangular shape.
• Cover the cheese with the dough, making sure all the seams are securely closed.
• Put on cookie sheet and cook for about 10 minutes, or until lightly browned.
• Serve with dipping sauce of your choice.

My Take

I made a couple that were just cut in half once, but I thought they were a bit too big. I liked them smaller, plus they would work better for appetizers, in my opinion.

I dipped my breadsticks in marinara sauce, which was very tasty.

I asked Dylan if they needed any other seasoning, and he said they were good the way they were, so I'm marking this down as a success. 

Also, I think I only used half a package of string cheese, but I'm not quite sure. I bought a full package, so that's what really counts, right? :p

Bursting with ooey gooey cheesy goodness. 

Sorry. Again.

Life has suddenly become quite busy and stressful for me as of late, so when I get home, I'm not really in the mood to cook anything extravagant or anything like that. The thing I've cooked the most as of late has been pancakes using Bisquick mix. That stuff is amazing. I went through a box in a month. :p

Anyways, I finally sat down and planned out some menus (which is really usefully, by the way) and I have 3 days which I'll be cooking meals. Tonight, I'm going to be attempting to be making calzones with cheese sticks. I have a recipe for the calzones (never used it before), but the cheese stick recipe I'm totally making up as I go along. I'll keep you guys posted on how that all turns out.

Secondly, I'm going to be making turkey burgers with home made fries. Both of those are things which I do all by sight, but I'll post what seasonings I use so you can maybe try it at your house.

And finally, I'm making beef enchiladas. Again, this is a recipe I've had, but never used before. I was kind of hoping to use my mom's recipe, but I found that I didn't have that one, so I'll try a new one instead.

So, those are the recipes I'm going to be making this week. I'll try to post the recipes either the night of or the day after I make them. Now I have to run to the grocery store so I can get all my ingredients! Ciao~