Nearly Cheeseless Pizza Calzones

There is nothing that I love more than homemade pizza. Except for homemade calzones. Individual sized pockets of pizza goodness brimming with sauce toppings... and, regretfully, cheese. Fortunately, when you make them yourself you can easily adjust the amount of cheese you put in each pocket. Just add more for the cheese lovers, and non lactose-intolerant members of your family, and less (or even none) for you.
I had made calzones before, sometimes with disaterous results: the small ones popped, the big ones took to long or burnt, and store bought dough mix just didn't work right. But, with a little tweaking, and the right dough recipe, these calzones taste amazing, even with hardly any cheese.

This dough recipe is from another old cookbook of my mother's, New and Easy Red Star Yeast Recipes copyright, 1974,1983

Pizza

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 package Red Star Instant Blend Dry Yeast (but any yeast will do)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup warm water
2 tablespoons shortening

Oven 400 F

This recipe makes four twelve inch pizzas, but since you want the crust to be thick on the calzones, this recipe will make two calzones that you can use as individual servings or to share.

In medium mixing bowl, combine 1 cup flour, yeast, and salt; mix well. Add warm water (120-130 F) and shortening. mix by hand until almost smooth. Gradually stir in remaining flour to make a firm dough. Let rest 15 minutes (I had to add about 1/4 cup more flour because my dough was too sticky to work with. You want the dough to be firm, but still slightly sticky and stretchy.)

This is where we go off away from the recipe. After the dough rests, cut it in half and take one of the halves and flatten it out onto a CORNMEAL covered surface, coating your hands with cornmeal to prevent the dough from sticking. The cornmeal is key to a really great taste and is the secret to most resaurant doughs.

You want to get cornmeal on both sides of the dough and to stretch it out to roughly 7 or 8 inches wide and tall (I made the dough into a rectangle for ease of transfer). Pick up the dough by one side and place it on a baking sheet that has a lip to it and add the sauce (just a little bit, too much can cause leakage), cheese, toppings, and more cheese (if you desire)on half of the dough ; and then fold the other half over to completely cover the toppings and pinch down the sides, folding over and pinching again to seal.

Cut vents in the top for steam to escape (I use my trusty kitchen shears) and pop it into the oven to bake at 400 F for 25-30 minutes. you want the crust to be golden brown and to have a hollow sound when you tap on it.