pizza and calzone

Last week, my boyfriend and I made pizza for dinner. I used a basic recipe for the dough from the pizza kit that I gave him and substituted a bit of whole wheat flour for the regular all-purpose flour. I think it was supposed to make 4 pizzas but we made 1 pizza and 1 calzone with it, and the crust definitely was quite thick. So I should certainly work on my pizza skills and rolling out the dough or tossing it or whatever. We watched this video of Jamie Oliver making a calzone. It is dubbed in German (almost wrote Deutsch), so we just muted it and watched how he did it in terms of folding it over and sealing it shut. We brushed ours with egg to make it brown a bit more. I think if it had been a thinner crust for the calzone, it would have been slightly more successful as it was a bit doughy/bready.

To prep the pizza crust, we seasoned it with a mix of herbes de provence, basil, salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes and then put it in the oven for a few minutes to crust a bit. For both, we used a basic Ragu tomato sauce (I forgot to get stuff at the store and so had to run to a corner grocery at 9 pm and just get whatever they had), though I normally would like to make a tomato sauce by hand (or just do a white pizza, but my boyfriend thought that was a crazy idea). Then we grated mozzarella across the pizza, put on some sliced tomatoes, and added some globs of ricotta. We added a bit of chopped bell peppers to the calzone as well.

margarita pizza, with stone

I gave my boyfriend a pizza making kit for Christmas, and we finally got around to using it (finally only because we cook so often). I wanted to make homemade dough for it (memories of making pizza weekly with Eryn in Morocco and the giggles that accompanied all of our kitchen time), so I've included the basic recipe from SK, though I tweaked it a bit. I think using the whole wheat flour instead of some of the regular flour contributed to the thickness of the dough, as did some perhaps imperfect measurements on my part. When it was hot, it was good, but the crust part was a bit more chewy than normal. I haven't had this problem using the same recipe but all white flour, so if you follow it exactly, you shouldn't have a problem.

We first baked the dough on the stone with a bit of olive oil, garlic, herbes de Provence, fresh thyme, and black pepper. Once it was about halfway done, we brought it out and put on the tomato sauce (from a jar), mozzarella and parmesan cheeses, and tomatoes, and put it back in the oven. When it was finished, we sprinkled fresh basil on the top, and voila. It was very yummy. We even enjoyed it cold the next day (sometimes reheating in an oven [no microwave], though worth it when I do, is more than I'm bothered to try).

*I doubled this recipe for our pizza, but I have used this for two and its been good (and thinner)


6 tablespoons warm water (may need up to 1 or 2 tablespoons more water)
2 tablespoons white wine
3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 cups flour [I used 1/2 cup whole wheat flour with 1 cup regular flour]


Whisk wine, water and yeast in a medium bowl until yeast has dissolved. Add honey, salt and olive oil and stir. Add flour and no matter how dry it looks, work it with a spoon and your fingers until it comes together as a dough. Add more water one tablespoon at a time if you need, but in my experience, this is almost never necessary.

Sprinkle some flour on the counter and knead the dough for a minute or two.

If you’re like me and always trying to reduce the number of dirty dishes left at the end of the night, wash the bowl you made the dough in, dry it and coat the inside with olive oil. Put the dough in, cover it with plastic wrap, and let it rise for an hour or up to two, until it is doubled.

[Easiest way to tell if a dough has risen enough? Dip two fingers in flour, press them into the dough, and if the impression stays, it's good to go. If it pops back, let it go until it doesn't.]