Tomato, Basil, Cheese Calzone

I love calzones. I have a soft corner for Pizza and Calzone. Actually, both were part of a personal project that I was doing. That explains the extra love. I have been making calzones for months now. Though I never got a chance to post them.

It is very difficult for me to list out something that I don't like to eat. Once, I and my sister were discussing about what we like and what we don't. I could not list even a single food item that I don't like. Ah wait! There was one, dry cabbage curry. My sister said that she will cook it for me and she was sure that I would like it too. She is always so confident about these things. She knows I love the Indian curries and dry vegetables that she prepares. She is an amazing cook, much better than I am. She has more experience too. I love watching her when she is cooking. And when I do, I always learn a thing or two.

I make pizza quite frequently and most of the times the dough turns out to be a little extra than required. I keep it in the fridge for later use and make calzones with it. The first calzone I made, was a mushroom and onion calzone. It turned out to be amazing and I became crazy. I made all kinds of calzones thereafter. The one over which everyone drools is the chocolate calzone. I will post that soon. It is not a complex/detailed recipe but I like to create some curiosity. Chocolate calzone takes you to another world. You feel like you are flying with open wings in the clear blue sky. Summer breeze starts blowing all around and nothing seems to be better. Believe me or sue me. ;) Just Joking.

I made pizza pie and pizzas on Thursday and there was some extra dough which I kept in the fridge. I went to Ooty with friends for the weekend. Ooty is a good place. It was sunny throughout and it was less greener. But the air was cold so the temperature was not that high. It was an amazing drive. There were a lot of memorable moments and walks. Aaah! I will never forget those. When I am up at a height, I am myself. Heights give me a high that nothing else gives (Assume we are not talking about food). Not a lot of people know that about me. But I have written poems on being at a height and enjoying the walk up to the summit.
Here is one for you: Heights

Ooty is known for homemade chocolates. We bought a lot of them. We went to Coonoor also. Coonoor is another hill station not far off from Ooty. It is known for its cheese farm. We could not go to the cheese farm and neither were we able to contact them. So, we searched for some homemade cheese in Ooty itself. We found a shop which sold local cheese. I and my friend bought a lot of cheese. The one I use in the recipe is a roasted garlic and paprika cheese. It is kind of like feta but even softer. We also bought aged cheddar, montasio style cheese, pepper honey and lemon & ginger marmalade. Shopping for food is always fun. I do it alone almost always. But this time when we entered the shop he was the one who suggested to roam around and buy a few things. I was surprised and so damn happy. It happens very rarely that I get company to roam around a food store with someone whilst the other person is also enjoying the process and is actively participating. The feeling was amazing. Our friends were busy buying clothes so we took enough advantage of the time.

So now you can imagine that I had a nice weekend and have good memories. Travel and trips bring people closer. They also expose you to certain traits of people that you have been ignoring. But you realize that there are certain things which can't be ignored. Maybe they are an important part of his/her being and not yours. Well, I can keep talking about travel, trips, mountains, heights, sky, people etc. but there is a lot more that I want to share with you.  Enjoy this tomato, basil, cheese calzone.

Let me pour out the recipe.

Tomato, basil, cheese Calzone
Makes 1

Take the dough recipe from here: Vegetable Pizza with Homemade Dough

Ingredients:
1. 1 tbsp olive oil
2. 2 plum tomatoes - cut in chunks
3. 1 green chilly - chopped finely (can avoid)
4. 5-6 fresh basil leaves
5. Soft cheese - Use as per your taste (I used a soft cheese. I used about 7-8 small cubes of cheese)
6. Freshly ground black pepper - as per taste
7. salt to taste
8. oregano to taste

Steps:
1. Heat up the olive oil in a pan. Add basil to the oil when it is hot.
2. Add tomatoes and green chilly to the pan after a few seconds.
3. Saute the tomatoes on high heat for about 2 minutes.
4. Season with salt, black pepper and oregano.
5. Roll out a ball of pizza dough. Keep it thin.
6. Spread the tomato on one half of the rolled out dough.
7. Add cheese on the top of the tomatoes.
8. Apply water on the edges of this half using your fingers. This will help in binding the edges closely.
9. Close the other half of the rolled out dough over the tomatoes and cheese.
10. Bind the edges of the dough using you finger and water. Hold one end of the edges (both the layers) and give them a twist towards the inside. Keep going like this till you reach the other end. Use water if dough is sticking to your hand.
11. Take aluminium foil and sprinkle some flour on it.
12. Keep the calzone on the foil.
13. Brush the calzone with water or egg white. The top of the calzone will cook slowly now and will be crispier. The color will also be brighter.
14. Pre heat the oven at 200 degree celsius. Place the calzone in the baking tray of the pre heated oven.
15. Let it cook for about 10-12 minutes or till the point it browns up.

Serve hot.

The calzone was delicious. The crust was light and crunchy and the inside was flavorful. Really, tomato, cheese and basil is an amazing combination. I highly recommend you to make this.

If the tomatoes are very juicy, some of the juices may run out. If possible, cook the tomatoes in the oven for sometime. That would take some of the moisture out. Bind the edges of the calzone tightly. I had a loose connection somewhere and the tomato juices came out. It turned out fine in the end though. So what are you waiting for? Go, go go!

Pizza Pie (Deep Dish Pizza)

I saw this pie somewhere and could not stop myself from making it.

Sometime back I did a lot of research on Pizzas for a personal project. I think that's when I became a much bigger fan of Pizzas. I love them. Though I am very specific  about my pizza. There is no such pizza as bad pizza but I like the thin crust style the most. There has been one more change now. I usually don't order pizza, I make them at home.

For dough, I have my favorite Jamie Oliver recipe which I love and am glad that I discovered it and tried it. A dear person, Cliff, shared a tomato sauce recipe with me recently, which I gladly tried and am happy that I did.

This is not exactly a Chicago style deep dish pizza. This is a pizza pie. It is about one inch tall and is thin crust. I loaded it with two layers of cheese and lots of vegetables and the yummy tomato sauce.

This Pizza Pie gives an instant high. It looks interesting and tastes amazing. The pie had a great crust and in the middle it was all gooey and cheesey.

It is a must try recipe for everyone. The process of making the pizza was so interesting, obviously the eating part is always fun. ;)

Pizza Pie
Recipe Adapted From: Deep Dish Pizza

Pick up the pizza dough recipe from here: Vegetable Pizza with homemade dough. It makes about 3 medium and one regular size pizza.

For Sauce:
Makes sauce for about 4 pizzas
Recipe source: Cliff Garzzillo

Ingredients:
1. 7-8 medium sized tomatoes
2. bunch of fresh basil leaves
3. Freshly ground black pepper
4. Oregano
5. 5-6 tbsp Olive oil
6. Salt to taste

Steps:
1. Crush the tomatoes and mix with all the other ingredients in a baking pan. Check if the tomatoes taste fine. Add a tsp of sugar if tomatoes are very sour.
2. Cook for about an hour at 180 degree Celsius in the oven. Alternatively you can also cover and cook on gas until soft and all mashed up.


Vegetable Topping:
You may use any kind of topping you like. I am putting down what I used.

Ingredients:
1. 200 g button mushrooms - Chop in chunks
2. 1 big capsicum - Chop in chunks
3. 1 large red onion - Chop in chunks
4. 2-3 green chilies - Finely chopped
5. freshly ground black pepper
6. red chilly flakes - to taste
7. salt to taste
8. oregano - to taste
9. 1-2 tbsp olive oil

Steps:
1. Saute the vegetables in the olive oil for 3-4 minutes. Add mushrooms just a minute before.
2. Sprinkle the seasonings as per your taste. Do not put salt yet. Put salt just when you are about to assemble the pie as mushrooms release a lot of moisture when salt is applied.

Other ingredients:
A lot of grated cheese. I used Amul Processed Cheese. You may use Mozzarella, Cheddar or any other kind.

Steps to assemble:
1. Roll some dough out. It should be enough to cover a 9 inch pie pan. Roll as thin as possible.
    You may have your pie pan of some other size in which case you  need to roll out accordingly.
2. Grease the inside of the pie pan with olive oil. Grease well so that the pizza pie does not stick.
3. Cover the pie pan with the rolled out dough. Remove the extra dough from the edges.
4. Spread cheese in the pie pan.
5. Spread vegetables on top of cheese. Garnish with salt now.
6. Now roll out some more dough. Roll as thin as possible.
7. Spread this over the vegetables (Refer the pic)
8. Spread sauce on the top of this layer. You can garnish with some chilly flakes.
9. Spread another layer of cheese.
10. Bake at 200 for about 40 minutes or until done. If you see that the bottom is not crisp or cooked properly, take the pie out of the pie pan (by now pie would be crisp and sturdy) and place it directly on the baking tray. Cover up the top with aluminium foil if it gets browned up but the base is still not cooked. Cook for few more minutes. (It happened with me. I took a few pictures and then realized that the base needed some more cooking. I then put the pie back in the oven. That explains the darker color of a pie piece. Rest of the photos were taken before these final few minutes of cooking )

As the pictures suggest, it was completely amazing. I thank all the people who have been the inspiration and source of recipes. In fact, I thank myself for making this and giving me this opportunity to eat such awesome stuff. ( A short thank you note.. ;))

Have a fun weekend guys. :)

Vegetable Pizza with homemade dough

Oh we had to eat pizzas yesterday. Something from inside spoke I guess. "The Voice" was loud and clear from within all of us, specially from me and my sister. Originally we were planning for egg mushroom rolls but I guess the rolls are not having the best of their times (If you read previous post you will realize this is not their first rejection ;) ). Pizza is more popular amongst us and we have been planning to have pizza with homemade dough for a while. For me making every component of a dish myself is very important. So I started with the dough, moved on to the sauce, chopped some veggies and finally baked the pizza. It was a delicious thin crust pizza, well balanced with sauce, toppings and cheese. Dough recipe is a simple and fast recipe and is the best that I have seen so far. Why wouldn't it be, after all its a Jamie Oliver recipe :).

Lets bake some Pizza.

Vegetarian Pizza
3 medium and 1 regular size pizza

Ingredients:
For Dough:
1. 266 grams all purpose flour
2. 66 grams very fine semolina
3. 1 1/2 tsp dry yeast
4. 1/3 tbsp caster sugar (I have also used 1 tsp granulated sugar and it works fine)
5. 1 tsp salt
6. 1 tbsp olive oil
7. 216 ml lukewarm water

Jamie Oliver rightly mentions on his site about this dough recipe "Once you have tried this easy pizza dough recipe, you'll never look back (trust me)".  He is absolutely right. I will never look for another pizza dough recipe after this. This is the easiest and fastest dough recipe and made perfect pizzas.

For preparing the dough mix the sugar, oil and yeast in the lukewarm water and let it rest for like 5-7 minutes. Mix the flour, semolina and salt in a big bowl. Now create a well in the flour. Pour the water inside this well. Now using a fork push the flour from the walls inside the well. Dust your hands well with flour (I missed doing this and it got a little messy). Now start kneading the dough. Knead it on a surface well dusted with flour while dusting your hands with flour every now and then. Knead till it becomes soft and smooth. Dust the bowl with flour in which you started kneading the dough and keep the dough in it. Cover it with a damp cloth and let it rest for around an hour or till it gets double in size.

You can roll out the pizzas about 10-15 minutes before you want to bake them. If you have extra dough you can wrap it in a cling film and save it in the fridge or freezer for later use. To make the pizza base, dust the surface with flour and using a rolling pin roll out a ball of dough. If you like thin crust pizza, roll the dough to a thickness of about 1/2 cm or even less.

For Sauce:
1. 5-6 chopped garlic cloves
2. 1 fine chopped red onion
3. tomato seeds and pulp of 4 tomatoes
4. 2-3 tomatoes with seeds removed (use the ones from which you have taken out the seeds)
5. 1/2 tsp dry oregano
6. 1/4 tsp black pepper
7. 1+1 tbsp olive oil
8. red chilli flakes (as per taste)
9. salt to taste

Put the garlic, onion, chopped tomato, salt in a mixer and blend. Now in a pan heat 1 tbsp olive oil and add the blended mixture to it. Cook it for a few minutes till it starts drying and then add the tomato seeds/pulp, oregano, pepper, chilli flakes and 1 tbsp olive oil. Cook for another minute and keep it aside.

For Topping:
1. 1/2 Zucchini
2. 2 medium sized red onion
3. 1 Cubanelle pepper
4. 200 g button mushrooms
5.  1/2 green capsicum ( I had a large one so halved it)
6. 1-2 tomato (use the ones from which you took out the seeds for sauce)
7. 8 -10 french beans
8. Grated and cubed cheese

Cut out thin stripes of zucchini lengthwise while maintaining its width. Slice up the button mushrooms (you can also chop them in chunks). Keep the zucchini and mushrooms on a foil and keep them in the oven on the grilling plate for a while. Spray a little olive oil before keeping them inside. Let them grill for a while till the zucchinis get little brown marks on them and the mushrooms also browns up. Simultaneously cut the french beans, tomato, capsicum, onion and cubanelle pepper. Now take the vegetables out of the oven. You may choose any kind of vegetables chopped up in different shapes and in amounts as per your liking. Grill them, saute them or use them raw. Just make sure that the vegetables are not too dried up and do maintain their crunch. And always half cook them as they are going to get baked with the pizza.

Grate any kind of cheese you like. I used grated Amul Cheese along with grated and cubed Britannia Cheese cubes (chilli pepper flavor).

Assembling the pizza:
Dust a tin foil with flour. Now keep the rolled out pizza base on it. Apply a thin layer of sauce. Sprinkle salt and black pepper. Now arrange some portion of all the vegetables on the sauce. Sprinkle salt, black pepper and oregano. Now top it off with grated and cubed cheese. Let it bake in the oven. I baked the pizza at 250 degree Celsius for about 7 minutes and for around the same time at a lower temperature (160 degree Celsius). I baked at a lower temperature so that the base can cook properly.

Serve hot. You can sprinkle with oregano and chilli flakes on the top.

Pizza was delicious and was cooked well. The sauce turned out to be really good and the sides of the pizza had that crunch. The toppings were really tasty. This was a yummy pizza which finished soon and I didn't get time to take enough pictures. I am sure I will make pizzas soon. Next time I will make the pizza with soft mozeralla and shiny parmesan.

So go ahead and make a delicious pizza for dinner tonight. Enjoy the rest of the sunday guys. :)