pizza dough, up to the point where you roll it out
1 1/2 cup baked or broiled mini meatballs
pizza sauce or other favorite tomato sauce
3/4 cup ricotta
3/4 cup spinach
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1/4 cup shredded mozzerella
1 egg
1 egg yolk, beaten
Directions:
In a medium saucepan, simmer the meatballs in the sauce. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400. In a medium bowl, mix together the spinach, ricotta, parmesan, egg and mozzarella. Divide the dough into 8 equal chunks*. Roll each one into a 5-6 inch round. Add 2 tablespoons of the spinach mixture and about 3 meatballs in one half of each round, leaving a 1/4 inch border. Fold the dough over to form a half moon shape and pinch shut. Repeat until all are filled and pinched shut. Brush the tops with the egg yolk. Bake on a pizza stone or on baking sheets for about 20 minutes or until golden. Serve immediately. Leftover calzones keep well refrigerated for a day or two and can be reheated quickly in the oven.
*To make hand sized, invidiual calzones.
My thoughts:
These calzones are so good. Using small meatballs means you can make smaller calzone, which I prefer-less messy and you don’t have share, since they are indiviually sized. You can use leftover sauce for dipping if you like but we had a little bit of leftover filling and sauce so I made a mini lasagna in a loaf pan to use it up. meatball hack
looks very good!!!
If my husband sees these, I know what I’ll be making this weekend. Your crusts look fantastic!
I just made some calzones on Saturday. I forgot the egg wash, so mine did not look as pretty as yours, but they were still good. My husband laughed when I bought a pizza stone, but now he is regretting that.
These are some gorgeous calzones! Such puffy pastry and tasty filling!
Courtney: I know! Pizza stones make all the difference.
oh those look amazing!
i discovered s substitute for a pizza stone for those that dont have one, and in fact it made my pizza crust taste like a stone oven. I use a cast iron skillet, and had turned on the oven to preheat with the skillet on a burner. sprinkled it with cornmeal and put the dough on it then got a phone call. Finished the pizza and put it in the oven and the dough was crispy and just like a pizza ovens. The “precooking” on the bottom that occured accidentally did the trick and i use it all the time now.
Using pizza dough to wrap up leftovers is a wonderful idea!
these look yumm-o!!! i have to ask though, was your filling or more so your sauce dried out any? i have tried to make lil pizza pockets before i found that everything got dried out in the inside.
i’ll have to give these a try. great blog…found ya via jennifer (aka felt mouse). i’m the lucky recipient of the other apron 😉
Elizabeth: that’s a good question. The sauce filling didn’t dry out at all, even in the one that opened slightly. The trick is to make sure they are sealed tightly and that the dough isn’t too thin.
They look delicious. I’ll certainly be giving them a go, maybe even tonight.