Crazy Calzones (aka: Kitchen Sink Calzones)

Not going to candy coat it, a daily creative challenge was a lofty goal. I mean, some days are just not made for making.

I thought today was one of those days, I really wasn’t planning on making anything more than a standard cheese and pepperoni pizza. Nothing to blog about really, especially since I already hit the grilled pizza topic. Then I found myself with a small ball of left over dough. In the past I might have made it into a mini-pizza, or just tossed it, but this creative challenge is working! Today a neon question mark popped above my head, “What should I do with this?” and just like that nothing became something. Not an earth-shattering something… but something.

Elise named it: Crazy Calzones…
…because we put whatever crazy stuff we could find in it. I think it’s also fitting to call them Kitchen Sink Calzones because of that idiom “throw everything in but the kitchen sink” but either way the point is gather up whatever is sitting unused in your fridge and throw it in some dough with some cheese and pizza sauce.

She embellished a bit in the video, we didn’t really put strawberries in ours, though she’s mostly accurate on the other ingredients. We used pizza sauce, shredded fontina, turkey meat, avocado, and corn because that’s what we had. The point here is creative reuse not fine italian cuisine.

HOW TO MAKE
Ingredients:
– Trader Joe’s pre-made pizza dough (found near the cheese area of the store)
– That nearly empty jar of pasta sauce sitting in your fridge
– Whatever cheese you need to use up
– Random ingredients from your fridge and pantry

Preheat the oven to 450. Cut the dough ball into 4 mini-doughballs. Because my dough was leftover from making a pizza, I only made one small calzone but it would be even more fun to have everyone take a mini-doughball and concoct their own creation out of weird ingredients and see who’s tastes best.

Roll out the mini-dough on a floured surface. I think a rolling pin is best rather than hand-shaping these so that the dough is even, otherwise it’s a little hard to fold. Also, if you don’t have a rolling pin you could use a large can or pint glass.

Once the dough is rolled out, take a fork and poke little holes all over the dough. Kids love this part!

Next spread some sauce in the middle, not too close to the edge. Sprinkle some cheese over the sauce. Then pile in your ingredients.

Fold one side over the ingredients to make a half-circle. Then pinch together the dough to make a tight seal. This prevents the ingredients from oozing out while it cooks.

Brush with some olive oil and bake at 450 for 15-ish mins.

This was not a mind-blowing meal. It was decent. What I liked most about it was the concept. It opens up endless options to reuse leftovers in a creative, easy way. For example, throw a bunch of leftover BBQ steak and grilled veggies in with some cheese or all those veggie remains towards the end of the week with some pesto and cheese.

Or just go for it, through the weirdest crap you can find sitting on your shelves. Just don’t forget to tell me how it went.