Tomato and Basil Calzones

I have been fighting a nasty summer cold the past few days, and finally started feeling well enough yesterday to do some cooking. Scott and I had some delicious cherry tomatoes and basil from Los Poblanos Organics (our local CSA), and I figured the ingredients would be perfect for some calzones! I had to get some cough syrup from the Los Alamos co-op anyways, so I picked up some mushrooms and pepperoni, as well as some mozzarella cheese from Las Cruces to complete the calzone 'package'.

I have a wonderful pizza dough recipe that I make in the breadmaker (secret ingredient: wheat beer!), so I put all the ingredients in the breadmaker and let it work its magic. I ended up with a perfectly fluffy batch of dough for my calzones!

I divided the dough into fourths and worked with just one batch at a time. I rolled each piece into a large rectangle and then layered on pepperoni, basil, tomatoes, and mushrooms, then topped with mozzarella cheese. Once the fillings were set, I cut small diagonal slits along the sides, so I could fold them up into pretty little calzones!

First calzone, filled and sliced and ready to be wrapped up!

It was a bit tricky getting each one folded up, and the first two turned out a little less than pretty. The second two looked a bit better.

All wrapped up! The two on the left were my first two, the two on the right were my second two (so they look a little better!). They still remind me of little mini-mummies or something though.

I baked them at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes, brushing them with olive oil, garlic powder, and kosher salt about halfway through the baking process. 

The crust cooked up wonderfully, slightly brown on the outside, but still light and fluffy on the inside. The kosher salt added that extra bit of flavor (like salt on a pretzel!), and the fresh cherry tomatoes were delicious! I was actually too excited to start eating that I forgot to take an 'after' picture! Check back for one soon, as I will be reheating one of these lovely calzones for lunch :)