Tomato and Goat Cheese Calzone

Calzone is basically a pastry that is made out of pizza dough with the topping placed inside and shaped into half moons. They are really handy to take when you are eating on the go for convenience as well as they are filling and delicious. I got the idea of making this when I found the recipes for no knead pizza doung fron Steamy kitchen's blog. These babies are really easy to make and you can fill it with any of you favorite pizza topping and sauce.


Ingredients:

1 baseball size No-Knead Pizza Dough (recipe here)
8 oz. canned diced tomatoes, drained
a handful of Italian parsley
goat cheese
olive oil for brushing on top of calzone



1. Pinch a baseball sized No-Knead Pizza Dough. In a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into a ball and covere with plastic wrap. Let it come to room temperature for about 20-30 minutes.


2. 20 minutes before baking, preheat oven and baking pan to 400F.

3. After the dough has softened a little bit, divide it in half and roll out into approximately 8 inch circle.



3. On one side of the dough, arrange your filling: tomato, parsley, goat cheese.



4. fold the other half over and seal well. You may use water to moisten the edge and make it stick better. Or, you can use a fork to seal edges.

5. Place calzone on the hot baking pan. Paint top with olive oil and bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.
NOTE: Be careful when taking the hot baking pan from the oven.


6. After it has finished cooking, take it out of the oven, paint with more olive oil and serve immediately.
WARNING: be careful not to burn your mouth as the filling will be very hot.

Pear and Gorgonzola Flatbread with Baby Arugula and Shaved Parmesan

This recipe is also from Steamy Kitchen. I have to say that mine turned out great and the dough is fantastic. One dough portion made a huge flatbread though so I am going to use maybe a smaller portion next time so it will just be enough for me.



1 lb fresh pizza dough
2 pears, sliced thinly
1/2 cup gorgonzola cheese
a nice chunk of good quality Parmigiano Reggiano, shaved with vegetable peeler
1 cup baby arugula leaves
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
flour, for dusting




1. Dust surface of dough with flour. Divide dough into 4 equal pieces. Stretch surface of dough on each side and tuck under, creating a round, ball with a taut surface. Flatten dough ball a little. Keep the dough covered until ready to use. If using cold, refrigerated No Knead Olive Oil dough (recipe here), let the dough balls relax and warm up for 30 minutes on the counter before trying to roll or stretch out (it’s hard to stretch cold dough.) If using room-temp pizza dough, you may proceed to next step.



2. You’ll bake 2 at a time. Dust surface of dough and work surface with flour. with your hands, carefully stretch into a long, thin, oval shape, about 16″x 6″. The thinner you can get the dough without tearing, the better. You can use rolling pin (esp if your dough is still a little cold). If dough is difficult to stretch or roll, let it sit and relax for 10 minutes. Repeat with remaining. Cover loosely with towel.



MY NOTE: I left my dough out for about an hour and a half then folded it 2-3 times. It made it so pliable, easy to work with and shape. I didn't even need my rolling pin to stretch it out.

3. 20 minutes before you want to bake you’ll want to preheat your oven and your baking sheet. Crank up your oven to its highest setting (usually most ovens go up to 500F) and insert an inverted baking sheet.

MY NOTE: I turned the oven temperature up to 500F and used baking sheet covered with aluminun foil.

4. Remove the hot baking sheet from oven and set your flatbreads on top, side by side. Work quickly and carefully. Brush surface with olive oil and layer pears and gorgonzola on top. Bake in oven for 7-10 minutes (keep your eye on the flatbread!) until top and bottom of flatbread is golden brown. Remove and repeat for remaining 2 flatbreads. Top with baby arugula and shaved parmesan.



MY NOTE: I baked mine for about 17 minutes which was the time it turned golden brown in color. The flatbread came off easily from the baking pan, no sticking problem.

No-Knead Pizza Dough

Inspired by my success on making Jim Lahey's No-Knead Bread, I tried to search the net for other no-knead bread recipe which brought me to my neighbor Faye's blog. As I was looking around in her blog, she has several recipes which uses no-knead pizza dough. Naturally, it got my attention so I followed the link she posted which then led me to Steamy Kitchen's blog which has the recipe for the No-Knead Pizza Dough. I just had to try this recipe...even if it meant having to make another trip to the market...

This recipe is by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois and is included in their book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, which is available on Amazon.com. Ahhh...I really have to get hold of that book one of these days. In the meantime, here is the recipe:

Makes 4 1lb loaves. This recipe is easily doubled or halved

2 3/4 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 tbl granulated yeast
1 1/2 tbl salt
1 tbl sugar
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
6 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour





1. Mix the yeast, salt, sugar and olive oil with the water in a 5-qt bowl, or a lidded (not airtight) food container.




2. Add flour and mix well using a large wooden spoon.



3. Cover (not airtight)then let it rest at room temperature for about 2 hours. You can use the dough at this point, or refrigerate and use over next 12 days. If you refrigerate at least overnight, you’ll develop better flavor in the dough. If you only want to make 1 flatbread, just pinch off a grapefruit sized piece of dough to use…keep the remaining covered loosely in the refrigerator.




MY NOTE: I was a little worried when I finished mixing the dough because it looked and felt really lumpy. I was also worried that it didn't have enough water in it but it was okay the following day.