calzones

A while back I made calzones. I never made them before. I've seen them at the pizza shops but then I thought why not order a proper pizza. These things are weird. They're double dough pizza copouts. They're Hot Pockets, I'm guessing. I've never had one of those things either.

You could fold a pizza in half for the same thing. So I thought.

Without knowing anything I made a dozen and they turned out to be beautiful things. I froze them and baked them as needed 25 minutes on high oven heat and each one was fantastic every single time. I should have made more. I should have made different kinds. I should have used my imagination. I can think of a million variations.

Next time I'll stuff with ricotta cheese flavored with real cheese because ricotta is like cottage cheese. Any variety of weak and strong flavored cheese, stretchy and hard cheese, like mozzarella and Romano.

I thought the dough can be upgraded from pizza dough to puff pastry so long as it's made at home with butter and not the easy path of commercial with their weird mystery oil.

So today I bought an excess of my favorite sliced ham and sliced turkey and capocollo and the best cheddar cheese that I've ever tasted. The rest I can get anywhere. I'm thinking spinach and my favorite herbs. Presently I'm totally digging tarragon. I love that stuff in everything. Because it's strange. And it's strong.

Any other dough would be easier than puff pastry, even pie dough, but back then when I tried this I really did think a puffed pastry would be a major improvement. Although I liked these ↓ that I made very much. They turned out to be the perfect emergency dinner. And lunch. And midnight snacks. Back then when I was scrounging, morning, noon or night, they were always my first choice until they were gone.

I kept asking myself, could it be right to consume these things one after another like this?

I thought they would be the perfect gift for a neighbor who eats a lot of Hot Pockets, so he said, but they were too precious to pass around. Maybe later. And maybe never. Because if the next batch is better than these shown here, with all their faults, then I just cannot see giving them away.

Not after all that tedious puff pastry rolling.

And not after all those top ingredients.

It would be like giving away gold bars.

Eh, who knows?

I'm torn between generosity and hoarding.

Looking back at these now I can really see more clearly how they can be greatly improved. Even though back then these sure were delicious and satisfying. And now salami just seems gross. The ordinary salami I bought recently from the grocery and the pepperoni I bought also, were both terrible. Both poor imitations of what those things really are. They nearly put me off hard sausages permanently. Quality ingredients makes a huge difference.

Calzones. The first time.

Somewhat small calzones. The salami ones need a lot more filling. I think they should be stuffed and juicy and somewhat dripping ingredients. I don't know. The calzones I had from the shop were two meals. And they had a lot of ingredients like a burrito. I haven't tried one of the meatball types yet.

This is half the amount of dough shown on YouTube videos.

  

This batch made a dozen.