32ouncejar of your favorite Marinara sauceI prefer a tomato-basil flavor.
1teaspoonoregano
2clovesgarlicminced OR 1 teaspoon garlic powder
Instructions
For the Dough
Whisk the yeast, warm water and sugar in a small bowl and let it rest and bubble about five minutes. Blend the milk into the ready yeast mixture.
Mix the flour and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add in yeast-mixture, oil, and mix until a dough forms. Let the dough rest about 5 minutes (it’ll be really soft.)
Turn dough out onto your lightly floured counter or board. Knead 50 strokes by hand, give a 2-minute rest, and knead 20 more strokes to make a soft, smooth dough.
Lightly grease large mixing bowl and place dough inside. Cover with plastic wrap or a damp dish cloth and allow to rise until double in a warm spot about one hour. While dough is rising, prepare filling ingredients.
Filling Calzone
Prick the sausage, set it in a large frying pan with 2 Tablespoons water over medium heat. Cover and let it steam about 25 minutes, then cut sausage into thin crosswise slices.
Slice the onions, peppers and mushrooms. Set them in the pan with sausage for last 5 minutes to steam a bit. (They won’t take up as much space this way and you’re insured they are cooked through.)
Forming Calzone
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees with the baking stone(s) about 20 minutes before baking the calzone.
Roll or pat each dough ball into a pizza-like circle about 8-inches across. Use a small amount of flour to keep from sticking only if needed.
Turn out onto your work surface and divide for desired number of calzones (6 pieces for individual calzone; 3 pieces for larger 2 person calzones.) Form each dough portion into a smooth ball and let it rest about 10 minutes.
Leave a ½ inch space around the edge of the Calzone: Paint the surface of your circle with the garlic/olive oil mixture. Now fill half of the circle with the filling ingredients of your choice. Start and end with Mozzarella cheese (this will help “glue” everything together as the cheese melts.)
After filling, sprinkle ingredients with a bit of salt and a little parsley, then drizzle a juice from a lemon juice over all ingredients and add the last Mozzarella.
Bring the top half of the dough over the filling to cover and pinch the edges together firmly to seal (this should hold if you didn’t get oil near the edges.)
Brush garlic oil lightly over the top of your calzone. Sprinkle with salt if desired and/or decorate the top surface to help identify ingredients or just to garnish.
Remove pizza stone(s) from your oven and place calzone on stones. Return to oven and bake about 10 minutes at 450 degrees (check to make sure dough is golden.)
Serve warm with Marinara sauce.
Marinara Sauce
Add oregano and garlic to sauce in a medium sauce pan. Heat sauce to simmer and keep warm until ready to serve.
Notes
NOTE: You can make your dough ahead, let it rise, then punch down, cover tightly with plastic wrap and put it in your refrigerator up to five days. Just make sure you bring it to room temperature and let it rise again before using/baking.