Sausage Calzones

We love making homemade pizza dough with our kitchenaid mixer. So we thought this calzone recipe would be great and it was! We use the basic dough recipe that came with the mixer, which I can share with you in a later post. David then ran the dough through the pasta maker step 1 attachment to make it thin and smooth instead of rolling the dough out by hand. It actually worked pretty well. This recipe which I got from The Fairhope Foodie Blog uses Pillsbury type dough (which is easy to use if you don't want to make your own).

Ingredients-

1 lb. Italian sausage (was on sale last week!)

1/2 cup onion, diced
1/2 cup green pepper, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 can olives, sliced
1 8-oz. jar pizza sauce (more for dipping)
2 tubes refrigerated pizza crust

1 8-oz. bag of shredded mozzarella cheese

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cook sausage in a medium skillet until browned, breaking up the chunks with a wooden spoon. Drain off excess fat. Return to pan and add onion, garlic and pepper. Cook for about 5 minutes, or until the vegetables soften. Stir in pizza sauce and sliced olives.

Unroll one package of pizza dough across the entire rectangular baking sheet or baking stone. Sprinkle half of the cheese in two rows on the dough with about 2-inches in between (remember you're making two long calzones). Top cheese with the meat & sauce mixture, dividing evenly between the two rows. Top each row with the remaining cheese.

Unroll second package of pizza dough and stretch to cover the top of the first. Press along the edges to seal. Press down the center creating the two calzones. Use a pizza cutter to cut down the center of the dough, making two separate calzones. Press the seam to seal. Lightly brush with olive oil and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Cut five two-inch slits in top of each calzone to vent.

Bake 22-25 minutes or until golden brown. Serve with extra sauce for dipping.

Mmmm This was by far the best calzone ever!!

Happy Weekend!