Calzones - (also known as, you can't please everyone, every day)

Last week my youngest son asked me to make calzones for dinner.  I love getting requests for dinner (saves me the time trying to think of what to make!) so I was only too happy to oblige him and made them last night.  I was suddenly thrust into a familiar situation - all at once I had two ricotta haters (the same two kids who inhale lasagna like nobody's business).  My kids will change what they like and don't like from one day to the next.  The biggest problem with this is my reaction - my feelings get hurt!!   Logically, I know this isn't reasonable.  There are seven of us in our family, the odds are against me being able to make something every single one of us likes every day.  So what can I do?  I decided I'm just going to make what I want, and fulfill special requests and if somebody doesn't like it, OH WELL. 

After the pouts were over and tears were dried (oh, the injustice of a homemade calzone!!) we went on to have a great meal.  Our Sunday dinner tradition is to go around the table and have everyone explain what they learned in church that day.  Invariably, one will always claim to have forgotten already, another will always say she learned about Jesus and another one always recites his entire lesson verbatim.  The oldest shares the jokes he told while the teacher was trying to drive home a spiritual point, at which time my husband and I both will shout "Don't be THAT kid!!" but he always just laughs and we know he is already thinking of jokes to tell next week.

I love Sunday dinner.

Calzones

This entire recipe is just kind of made up.  I use a pizza crust recipe that I got somewhere ages ago and have changed around so many times it's all mine now.  The filling is just what I felt like filling it with yesterday (obviously, a HUGE mistake according to two of my kids), you could also fill it with sausage, ham, pepperoni, veggies, etc.. etc...

Dough:

2 1/4 tsp. or one packet of active dry yeast

1/2 tsp. brown sugar

1 tsp. salt

2 tbsp. olive or vegetable oil

1 1/2 cups warm water

3 cups all purpose flour

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast and brown sugar in the water.  Let sit for 5 to 10 minutes until bubbly.

Stir the salt and oil into the yeast mixture.

Mix in the 3 cups of flour.  Cover bowl with a towel and let rise for 1 hour.  Punch down the dough and let it rest for 1 minute.  Roll out into a rectangle.  I cut it into 5 wide strips which made 5 GINORMOUS calzones.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Filling:

15 oz. ricotta cheese

1 egg, beaten

1 cup mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

1 tsp. minced garlic

1 tsp. parsley

1 tsp. basil

Salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in bowl.  Spoon ricotta mixture onto one side of the strip of dough.  Fold the dough over and press along all the edges to make sure the filling doesn't come out.  Brush the tops of the calzones with an egg yolk wash for color.

Bake for 25 minutes. 

I usually heat up some pizza sauce to dip the calzone into also.