Calzones

I went through a period of making calzones a lot....I remember a lot of late dinners waiting for the dough to rise after a last minute inspiration! Fortunately, you only need to let it rise once, so if you plan ahead, you don't have to be waiting all night for them to be coming out of the oven. As usual, I throw in whatever veggies I have on hand, with eggplant being one of my favorites. I didn't have any this time, so it is just my standard mix of what I always have around. I was bummed that my whole wheat flour apparently had been in the fridge too long, so I used regular bread flour mixed with amaranth. I have to say, the texture was great! It was a bit tough when I was trying to knead it, so I wasn't sure how it would be. But even Craig commented on how good the crust was. And just as a little plug for amaranth, it is second highest only to quinoa for the amount of protein in a grain, and is high in lysine. It is also an excellent source of iron and magnesium. This recipe makes 6-8 calzones, depending how big you like them. They also freeze well, making a quick dinner for another night.

Dough:

1 tsp active yeast
1 cup warm water
1 tsp agave, or other sweetner of choice
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 cups flour
1 cup amaranth flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
4 T olive oil

Combine the yeast, water, and sugar. Stir and let sit for about 10 minutes, or until nice and bubbly. Beat in the flours, salt, and olive oil. Knead until smooth. Let rise, covered, in a warm place for about an hour.

Filling:
Do what you like! I used broccoli, zucchini, red pepper, carrots, onions, and pineapple in mine. I probably do about 4 cups of veggies, chopped, and sauteed in a little tomato sauce (not too much as it will all leak out when it's baking, just enough to bind it together a bit) and garlic.

To assemble:
Preheat oven to 425. Break the dough in half, and divide each half into three or four equal sized balls. Sprinkle the counter with flour and roll out each ball into a circle. Spoon a couple of tablespoons of your filling onto one side (judge depending on the size of your circles, you want to put the filling so it's on one half with about a half of inch to spare so you can fold the edge of the dough over). I normally pour some nutritional yeast sauce over the top, but we had some Follow Your Heart cheese that needed to be finished off, so I sprinkled some of that on this time. Fold over the top half of the dough and either use your fingers or a fork to seal. Repeat with remaining circles. Brush the tops with olive oil before putting in the oven. Bake for about 15 minutes, until golden.

I always like having some extra tomato sauce to pour on top, or some garlic olive oil to dip the edges in. This time, I was feeling the need for a little protein, but we were out of Tofurky Italian Sausage, my usual pizza topping. I put in some onions, garlic, and Lightlife Smart Ground into some sauce instead and dished that over the calzones before eating.