Chicken Italian Sausage Calzone

INGREDIENTS
Serves 2

• 1 package of pre-made pizza dough
•  whole milk mozzarella cheese
• Italian blend shredded cheese
• chicken Italian style sausages (or sausage of your choice)
• basil leaves
• garlic cloves
• vine tomatoes
• spinach leaves
• sliced mushrooms
• olive oil
• your favorite store bought or homemade marinara
• grated Romano cheese (optional)

The beauty of this is that you can use as much or as little filling as you'd like. Start by taking your pre-made pizza dough out of the fridge and let it sit at room temperature for an hour. While the dough sits, slice your sausage. Saute the sausage in a pan along with your mushrooms. Set aside. After the hour passes, lightly flour your working space and cut the dough into 2 even pieces. Lightly flour your work space and roll out each piece of dough into a circular (I used rectangular) shape.

 

The next step is to fill half of your pizza dough. Again, you can use as much or as little as you'd like. I layered mine with mozzarella, Italian shredded cheese, sausage and mushrooms, minced garlic, tomato slices, spinach and more mozzarella.

Fold over the other half of the dough to cover the filling. Make sure that the edges are secure and sealed so that the filling does not ooze out during baking (I used a fork to seal the edges of each calzon). Place the calzones on a baking sheet drizzled with olive oil. Drizzle more olive oil on top of each calzone. Bake them in an oven preheated to 425 degrees for 30 minutes.

While the calzones are baking, heat up your favorite marinara or prepare your own. I quickly put together a marinara consisting of crushed tomatoes, a freshly diced tomato, chopped basil, minced garlic, diced red onion, crushed red pepper, salt and pepper. 

When your calzones are done baking, let them rest for a few minutes. Top it with your marinara and some grated Romano cheese. Or if you prefer, have your marinara on the side or none at all. Afterall, it's about what YOU like. Make it your own!