Calzone with Chicken and Artichoke

Friday nights Mario and kids often take me out for pizza (OK, actually I take THEM out for Pizza, but I let them think they take me). But last Friday night, I didn't feel like going out, so I decided to make a pizza at home. My pizza ended up morphing into Calzones, because we wanted to barbecue them, and two Calzone's fit on the grill much better than two pizzas.


I decided to stuff the calzones with chicken, artichokes, assorted veggies and pizza sauce. This was despite serious familial pressure from all corners to make a boring old pepperoni calzone. I did give in on the pizza sauce, originally I was going to use pesto.

I ended up making my own pizza sauce, and I was really pleased with it. I looked up several recipes on the internet to get an idea for the general ingredients, and then I used a "taste as you go method". For once, I remembered to write everything down. This sauce was really good, and very very easy to make, no cooking involved, I just made it in the blender.

Whenever I make homemade pizza crust or bread, when it's done rising, I'll call out, "Who wants to punch down my dough".... and Marco drops EVERYTHING and comes running. He likes to punch things, and much better for him to punch pizza dough, than Claire.


Calzone with Chicken and Artichokes

Pizza Crust:
Use refridgerated pizza dough, or make my pizza dough, and you can find the recipe in my Strawberry and Asparagus Pizza post.

Pizza Sauce:
1 can (28oz) diced tomatoes
1 can tomato paste
1/4 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp parsley
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
1/2 tsp cinnamon
fresh ground pepper

1. Put all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth but chunky (smooth but chunky? that sounds straightforward, doesn't it?)

2. This will make a lot of pizza sauce, so you can freeze what you don't use.

Calzone Stuffing:
1 can Artichoke hearts, roughly chopped
3 chicken breasts
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1/2 red pepper, chopped
1/2 green pepper, chopped
1/2 zucchini, chopped
3 large mushrooms, chopped
2 cups Mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
Cornmeal

1. Cook chicken breasts in oven on a cookie sheet (350 for about 30 minutes). Remove from oven and cut into bite size pizzaz

2. Saute onion, red pepper, green pepper, zucchini and mushrooms in olive oil until tender. Add artichokes and chicken.

3. Assemble calzone. Roll out 1/2 dough into a 14" circle. Spread with pizza sauce, sprinkle with 1/2 of mozzarell and 1/2 of Parmesan. Place 1/2 of the filling mixture on half of the circle. Fold the other half of the dough up to cover the filling and fold and pinch the edges to seal. Repeat for second calzone.

4. Brush lightly with olive oil and dust with cornmeal. Grill on the barbeque over indirect coals for about 10 minutes per side. (Alternatively you can bake in the oven at about 400F for the same amount of time, or until it is nicely browned on the outside)

5. Serve with a little extra pizza sauce for dipping.