Whole Wheat Calzones

A while ago at work, I came across this blog that had a list of cute and inexpensive date night activities.  While I was in St. Louis.  Bri and I took a peek at the list and were amazed to see how much be had already done! One of the things that we hadn't done was the "make your own pizza night." This is actually pretty surprising.  I love to cook (surprise!) and Bri and his dad have this tradition of making their own Chicago-style pizza every year.  It would make perfect sense for us to have a date-night where we cook pizza together.  However, we had never done it! So, we rushed right out to the grocery store and got the ingredients for whole wheat pizza dough and the toppings that we wanted.  But wait, there's more! I have this goal over spring break to finally go through a TON of the recipes that I have had saved for EVER.  One of the recipes is for Whole Wheat Calzones from The Healthy Foodie.  This seemed like the perfect way to have make your own pizza night and help me with my spring break goal.  The recipe called for a basic lightened-up spinach calzone and she even threw in tofu to get some extra protein! We went for spinach-red pepper-mushroom (for me) and spinach-red pepper-tomato (for Bri).  It was the perfect date-night activity and it was super yummy!!!

Whole Wheat Calzones (dough from King Arthur and Calzone from The Healthy Foodie)

Ingredients:

For the dough (make 1/4 of the recipe for 2 calzones):
3 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp instant yeast
1 1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp lukewarm orange juice
2 tbsp olive oil
3/4 cup lukewarm water
For the filling:
2-3 cups packed spinach
1 red pepper
1 tomato
salt and pepper
nutmeg
1 cup low-fat mozzarella
1 cup low-fat cottage cheese
1 egg

Directions:
Make the dough (you should do this the day before) We made ours around 8 at night and started cooking around 4 the next day:
1. Mix all ingredients together and let rest for 30 minutes. Then, mix and knead until you have a smooth, soft dough.
2. Transfer the dough to a bowl, cover it, and let rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.  Then, place in fridge for about 16 hours. Remove from fridge, lightly brush the dough with olive oil, re-cover it, and let rise for 2 more hours in a draft-free, room temperature area.
3. Once the dough is ready, cut it in half and roll out two rounds, 6-8 inches in diameter.

Make your calzone filling:
1. If you are like us and want different fillings, then just use two skillets and sauté the veggies that you want with the salt and pepper (to taste), add the spinach at the end and sauté until it is wilted.  Remove from heat.
2. In a large bowl (or two small ones with half of each ingredient), mix the mozzarella, cottage cheese, egg and nutmeg (we also threw in a little cheddar cheese).  Add in the veggies and stir to combine.
3. Drop the filling into the middle of the calzone rounds.  Flatten it out slightly and push towards one side of the circle.  Fold over the other side of the dough and press into the other side.  Fold the edges together at least once (twice if you can) and press together with a fork.
4. Bake on a lightly greased cookie sheet for 18-20 minutes or until the dough is browned and a little crispy.
Serve with marinara sauce for dipping or anything else that you would like!

Enjoy :)