Ratatouille Calzone: Meat Free Monday

I Love making Calzone, you can fill it full of any veggies you like and it always turns out lovely and juicy in the middle! I also love ratatouille as it’s so fresh and vibrant and very healthy so I thought it would be a great idea to combine the two! Don’t be put off by making your own pizza dough, out of all the baking recipes I think pizza dough is the easiest. Plus it means you can see exactly what has gone into it and you can roll it out to the thickness you prefer- for me it’s always thin and crusty! My husband isn’t a massive fan of lots of vegetables but he enjoyed this recipe so that’s the ultimate test for me!

Makes 2 Calzones (This would serve us one each but if you’re more reserved you could have half each to serve 4)

280g Strong Bread Flour
2 teaspoon Easy Blend Yeast
1 pinch of Salt
2 tablespoons Olive Oil
150ml Water

1 Red Pepper
1/2 Yellow Pepper
1 Courgette (smallish sized)
1/2 Onion
1 can chopped tomatoes
2 Garlic cloves
1 teaspoon Dried Basil
Fresh Basil
Salt and Pepper
50g Cheddar Cheese
50g Parmesan Cheese

To make your pizza dough – Sift the flour into a large bowl with the yeast and the salt. Make a well in the middle and add the oil and water then stir using a wooden spoon untill it has formed a dough (to stir you start mixing the flour from the middle of the bowl with the water and oil and slowly incorporate the rest of the flour working outwards untill all the flour is combined. I find once it is mixed it’s good to get your hands in there and mix it with your hands for the last bit. Don’t be afraid if you think there isn’t enough water, as you mix it all it will come together – you can always add more water 1 tablespoon at a time if you feel you need it but don’t add too much!)

Knead the dough on a floured surface for 5 minutes then shape it into a ball and coat lightly with oil, put it in a bowl, cover it with cling film and leave it somewhere warm to rise (around 1 hour or untill doubled in size).

To make the sauce pour the chopped tomatoes in a sauce pan and add the crushed garlic and dried basil. Cook this over a medium heat untill the tomatoes have reduced down a bit and become thicker. This will take around 10 minutes. Season and put to one side.

Slice your peppers, onion and courgette finely and put to one side ready to use when the dough has risen.

Preheat the oven to 200c.

Once your pizza dough is ready, cut it in half and roll out each half into a circle on a floured surface (to stop it sticking). Don’t roll it out too thin as it will break when you try to fold it. Around 5mm thick is fine.

Place the rolled out circles of dough onto a pizza try (or baking tray) and spread the tomato sauce all over each circle. Then layer the onion, courgette and peppers just on one side, season with a little black pepper and salt if you want. You can layer it up so you use up all the veg you have chopped. Sprinkle the grated cheese over the vegetables and finally top with a few fresh basil leaves.

Fold the side with no vegetables over to encase the filling and seal the edges. Do the same with the second calzone.

Make sure you assemble the pizzas on the tray as if you assemble them on the side they will be too heavy to lift (I made this mistake my first attempt!)

Put the calzones in the oven for 20-25minutes untill golden brown and crispy on the top and the bottom! They will be easy to lift and cut up now too.

Serve with Salad.

Photo of my uncooked calzones – I fit them both on one pizza tray by making and folding one on the tray and then doing the other one next to it 🙂