The Sun and the Wolf: CALZONE NIGHT IS FINALLY HERE

Several weeks ago you may remember that we voted on calzone night. The Sun’s phone was broken at the time and so we were relying on The Bean to take pictures. Well, after literally weeks of her holding the pictures hostage . . . we bring you: Calzone Night!

The winners:

Veggie calzone: broccoli, ricotta, and mozzarella

Meat calzone: pepperoni, spinach, ricotta, and mozzarella

We decided to wing it with the recipes. We got dough from our local pizza place, Highland Pizza.

Our guest chef, Bambi, is now taking over to explain to you how she made our calzones and her commentary.

Recipe

1. Stretch a fist sized ball of dough into a circle – As thin as possible.

2. Fill with veggies, cheese, meat, sauce. Make sure to place in the center and to not overfill.

3. Fold over and seal by using a little bit of egg wash and either pressing with a fork or pinching shut with fingers.

4. Brush the top of the calzone with more egg wash.

5. Place in baking dish and bake at 350 until golden brown.

6. Serve with dipping sauces.

Calzone Making
This is a 2-person job – One person to stretch out the dough, another to put in the fillings and seal it up. I think that because we put the dough in the fridge before working with it, it became too elastic, too stretchy. Also – one may think that sealing a calzone is a simple thing to do. We tried forking it, pinching it, sealing with olive oil, and then with egg wash. The egg wash seemed to work the best after a few failed attempts where I was certain that everyone would be eating open-faced calzones that night. Calzone tips: Don’t refrigerate the dough, stretch the dough out as thin as possible as it will poof up a lot during baking, don’t overstuff the calzone, flour the board and your hands, use egg wash as opposed to olive oil.

Use any ingredients you like, and enjoy!

The Sun overseeing Bambi's process

Some of the final products

Thank you, Bambi!

Anyway, as Bambi and The Wolf made the calzones, The Sun made the sauces. We had ricotta sauce, spicy fresh tomato sauce, and regular marinara (store bought).

Heating up the sauces

Ricotta Sauce

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 cups ricotta

1/3 cup heavy cream

Salt and pepper to taste

Oregano or Italian seasoning blend

Red pepper flakes to taste

Heat up oil in a sauce pan to coat the bottom. Place ricotta cheese in and stir in heavy cream slowly, careful not to add too much liquid. Blend together until smooth and reduce if too thin. Add seasoning and serve for dipping immediately.

Spicy Tomato Sauce

1 28 oz can of crushed and peeled tomatoes

2 tablespoons olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

pepper flakes

1 clove garlic

dried oregano

In a food processor or blender, place all of the ingredients together and mix until smooth. Once blended, simmer in a sauce pan and reduce as necessary. Adjust seasoning, adding more pepper flakes until desired level of spiciness.

In addition, The Bean prepared us a lovely meat and cheese plate: