Pizza and Calzone Night PLUS Dessert!

thin crust personalized pizzas

calzones!!!

raspberry-mango pie mmmmmmmmmmm

Last night, I decided to try to make something we love to order on the weekends...pizza!!! And of course, you can just let your imagine go beyond that...calzone/pastie/pizza pocket! Toppings were going to be different, no doubt. I browned up some ground beef (real ground beef...not like the fake ground beef you get at real pizza shops. Did you know that the ground beef is really soy??) Anyways, I added some mexican seasoning to make the beef become taco filling...mmmmm...

Then whatever I had in the fridge...red peppers, mushrooms, cheese -- lots of that, and pasta sauce.

I let the girls make their own pizzas and said they were delicious. What is better than have the kids personalize their own dinner and enjoy eating it.

For dessert, Karen brought over a raspberry-mango pie from Wanda's Pie in the Sky pastry shop in Kensington Market. She warned us that it was rich...but I thought the tartness of the raspberry even it out. The crust was very buttery. Yum yum.

Pizza Dough --makes 8 good size pizzas

1 1/2 cup of warm water
2 tsp of active dry yeast
1 1/2 tbsp of honey
2 tsp salt
3 cups of flour
1 1/2 tsp of olive oil

Put water in large bowl and sprinkle yeast. Whisk in honey until blended or dissolved. You can leave the yeast to bubble -- takes approx 10 mins. But since I can never predict when a baby will give me quiet time, I added the salt and flour right away. Mix in the flour gradually until it forms a dry dough, then you have to get your hands into it to knead it. Knead for 5 mins. Then form into a ball and pour in the olive oil. I flipped the dough in the bowl so that the olive oil coats top and bottom of the dough.

Then cover it with plastic wrap and let rise for 2 hours, which it will double in size.

Then punch it, and cover again to rise for another hour -- this step is not necessary.

Preheat oven to 450 F

Cut up the dough into small palm size balls -- slightly smaller than a baseball. The flour your table or rolling surface and roll out to thin or thick for your crust. For calzone, roll out and add toppings to the top half of the circle and then brush with egg on the edges. Fold bottom to the top to make a crescent shape. Seal edges by pressing the edges with a fork. Brush the tops with egg for a nice brown crust.

Pizzas will take around 12-15 mins while the calzones take 20-25 minutes.