Easy Recipe – Homemade Pizza and Calzones

Who doesn't love homemade pizza?  And we love to use this same recipe to make calzones, it's definitely one of our kids' favorites.

See the newest pizza dough recipe I've been using below (it has a little molasses in it) – we all like it even better!

–This first recipe, though, is the one I use for homemade calzones.  I double it so I can make extra to freeze (read how to do that easily in this post about a couple make-ahead meals that kids love).

–See the soaked version below this first recipe, where you start the recipe ahead of time to make it extra digestible

–And also below are a variety of ideas for easy-to-make pizzas.

Use the basic dough setting in a bread maker, or if you make it in the Bosch, knead about 5-6 minutes, add ingredients in this order:

• 1 1/4 cup warm water, not hot (filtered water is best)
• 2 teaspoon yeast
• 2 Tablespoons soft butter (pastured butter is best)
• 2 1/2 cups flour (I use einkorn flour mostly now.)
• 2 cups organic whole wheat flour (freshly ground if possible) or whole spelt flour
• 2 Tablespoons raw honey 
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt

As it's mixing it should start to pull all the dough off the sides.  If it's not doing that, it may need more flour, just sprinkle more in a little at a time until it pulls all the dough from the sides and isn't so wet anymore.  After the dough setting is done and beeps (again, after about 5-6 minutes total in the Bosch), split it in thirds and use floured hands to spread each around three buttered, 15″ stainless steel pizza pans.  (That's for medium-to-thick crust, you could also get 4 thin crusts from this dough.) Let set until a half hour before you want to eat.

In the meantime, prepare the other ingredients depending on what type of pizza you're making:

• You can use traditional ingredients (I use organic pizza sauce and other organic ingredients I can find.) UPDATE: here is a homemade pizza sauce recipe!
• Sometimes I'll make a bacon cheeseburger pizza: ketchup and mustard for the “sauce”, cooked hamburger (grass-fed beef, cooked with onions, salt & pepper), then sprinkle on bacon, lettuce, pickles, tomatoes & cheese.
• You could do a meatless pizza: brush on butter with garlic, then add various veggies and cheeses. We like parmesan and mozzarella with tomatoes, peppers, zucchini and Kent likes mushrooms, too.
• For a treat spread melted butter on the crust and sprinkle cinnamon & sugar, then bake until golden.
• Another one we like is using barbecue sauce instead of regular pizza sauce (I make my own barbecue sauce recipe lately since it's super easy and most store-bought kinds have high fructose corn syrup and the organic ones we've tried aren't great), then we put on ingredients like ham or canadian bacon, pineapple, green pepper, cheese.
• You could use this dough recipe (or the one below which I now like better) to make calzones and put ham & cheese inside, pizza ingredients or anything you'd like: flatten a big ball of dough on a lightly floured surface, spread ingredients in the middle, fold over and pinch sides together, brush with beaten egg and bake about 20 minutes or until golden.  (At right shows the ingredients I pulled out of the freezer to throw these together later in the day:  ham and 3-cheese calzones, yum!)

Always bake the crust 15 minutes or so (375*) before adding the ingredients on top (or it will be soggy), then bake another 15 minutes with the ingredients, until they are hot and the cheese is melted and starting to get lightly browned, plus the crust will lightly brown too.

SOAKED VERSION

For the soaked version, start the night before and let set overnight, or I've even started it in the morning and let it set for 7 hours.  (Picture at right.) Again, I double this recipe:

• Mix together 2 1/2 cups hard whole wheat flour (or whole spelt or whole grain einkorn), 1/2 cup very warm water, and 1 cup yogurt, buttermilk, whey, or another acidic liquid.
• At least 7 hours later add in the rest of the ingredients (add the salt last, after you mix it for a little bit – the flour protects the yeast from the salt, which can kill it and you won't get a rise):  2 teaspoons yeast, 2 Tablespoons soft butter, 2 cups unbleached white flour, 2 Tablespoons honey, 1 1/2 teaspoon sea salt.

Continue with recipe as noted above.

Here's the recipe I use mostly now for pizza crust, it's just a *touch* sweet:

Below is the recipe I've been using lately and we all love it!  A friend, Amy K., gave it to me – makes 2 thick pizza crusts, 3 medium crusts, or 4 thin crusts. Sometimes I'll make different kinds like one meat-lovers, one with just cheese for the kids, and another maybe without sauce, and then I'll brush on garlic butter, various veggies, and 3 kinds of cheeses, yum!

• 2 teaspoons yeast
• 1 3/4 cups warm water
• 1/4 cup soft butter
• 1/8 cup molasses
• 1/4 cup raw honey
• 6 1/4 cups flour (I used 2 cups whole wheat Einkorn flour and organic unbleached bread flour for the rest.)  You may need to add a little more flour, feel the dough after it kneads a bit to know and to see if it's pulling from the sides — it should not be sticky, but a little wet still is okay, you can flour or butter your hands before working with it.
• 1 teaspoon sea salt (goes in last after the flour)

Follow the instructions above for what to do now.

Note:  this makes about 16-18 calzones (a little bigger than fist size, which rise to even bigger), so I double it so that we have enough leftover to freeze for quick snacks.  (In theory anyway, we rarely DO have any leftover…)  This picture isn't real pretty, but it shows you how I make them, not real fancy!  One of these days I'll remember to snap a shot when they're done before they're all eaten!

Want to try these unique pizzas?

For one we just made this simple sloppy Joe pizza (a good way to do something different with your sloppy Joe leftovers), but for the other one, we were trying to recreate a pizza we had with our son in Detroit from a place called Ottava Via that is now everyone's family favorite.  I was fresh out of foie gras and rosemary apple butter, but winged it with the rest.  We used bacon, onions caramelized with balsamic vinegar, a little bit of homemade apple sauce, cooked potatoes, arugula and spinach, parmesan, and pastured eggs on top — weird ingredients, right?  It's like breakfast and a crazy mix of yumminess all together in your mouth.  As expected, it wasn't as good as we had hoped (I think I need a pizza oven!), but it was darn close.  Check out the actual picture of when we had it in Detroit.

More you might like:

• Check out my recipe for No Cook Pizza Sauce
• More meals kids love
• Which milk is healthiest?
• Easy chicken recipe -better than chicken nuggets
• Why everyone should take cod liver oil, or the capsules, and where to get it.

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