Pizza dough fun

One of the things I enjoy most is making my own pizza dough. It only takes 15 mins to make and the dough freezes very well for up to a month. When I was a student living out of home, I'd make this dough up and keep half in the freezer for later and it made a cheap and very filling meal.

Friday night I made pizza for dinner and this morning, with the leftover dough, I whipped up a batch of 6 calzone to take for lunch this week... unless Gib gets to them first.

For the dough:
4 cups flour (or for wholemeal pizza dough: 2 cups each of plain and wholemeal flour)
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 x 8g sachet yeast
2 tsp sugar (or 1 1/2 tsp honey)
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil

• Dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Set aside for 10 mins.
• Sift the flour, sugar and salt together.
• Make a well into the centre and gradually mix in the yeast/water mixture. Mix in the honey and olive oil at this stage.
• Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and kneed until smooth.

If storing for later, wrap your dough in cling wrap and place in a zip lock bag in the fridge for up to 2 days or in the freezer for up to 1 month.

Divide your dough and shape it into a pizza base or for calzone, or whatever you feel like.
I bake my home made pizzas for 15 minutes at 200C.

My "calzones":
I lie, my calzones were more like pasties, but using bread instead of pastry. I'm having a bit of a fad for legumes at the moment, but you could replace the lentils with minced meat or bacon or whatver you feel like.

• 1 onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 tbsp olive oil
  
• 1 cups of lentils, mixed variety, soaked overnight
• 1 carrot, finely diced
  
• 1 turnip, finely diced
  
• 1 cup of peas (frozen)
  
• 1/4 cup red wine
• 500 ml vegetable stock
  
• 1 cup pasta sauce
  
• 1 tsp worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp fresh rosemary

Saute onion and garlic until onion is clear. Add lentils, carrot, turnip, stock, red wine, pasta sauce and worcestershire sauce. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook for ~30 mins or until lentils are soft. Add peas at the end.

Some people prefer to make their calzone in a semi-circle shape, but I've had too much trouble in the past with my filling oozing out of the sides, so I prefer this method: Roll out the dough in a roughly square shape, about 30 cm x 30 cm. Place a large spoonful of the mixure in middle. Fold the two side edges in. Fold the bottom edge up and then continue to roll the calzone over to close over the last edge (so the seam of th calzone is on the bottom).

Transfer your calzone to a tray lined with a baking sheet. Brush the calzone with 1 lightly whisked egg. Bake for 15 minutes at 200 C.



In other exciting news, I came home from a party Saturday night to a distinct smokey smell. Really smokey. My mum had been having a bit of a dinner party, and according to my dad, she got talking, and burnt the syrup that was supposed to go on the dessert. Not just burnt, but really burnt. So much so that one of the cats had to be taken outside because he was coughing! Check this out! Miraculously, the teflon coated cast iron pot was still in perfect condition!