I'm ba-a-a-ack! (Spinach Calzones)

Two months?! I can't believe that I have ignored this poor blog for that long. Life stuff has been hectic, but still ... two months!

Anyway, I'm back with mini spinach calzones. I needed to take a plate* to a party last night, so I threw these together quickly. I had the dough for a pizza base in the freezer, as well as some spinach and some Cheezley cream cheese, so I decided to combine a couple of favourites, spinach and calzones. I also like my party nibbles small and not too messy, so these worked well.


Mini Spinach Calzones

Makes 24.

Ingredients

• Pizza dough for 1 base, uncooked. (I used some from the Vegan with a Vengeance recipe, with whole wheat flour swapped for about about 1/3 of the plain flour in the recipe. I always make extra when I make pizza and freeze it in 1 pizza batches. Use whatever pizza base recipe you like)
• 250g frozen spinach
• 2 large spring onions chopped
• 75 grams vegan cream cheese (I used Cheezley Sour Cream and Chives variety that I found in my freezer)
• 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast (also called savoury yeast) (optional)
• Salt and pepper to taste
  

Method

1. Preheat oven to 240 degrees centigrade.
   
2. After you have prepared your pizza dough, cover it and put it aside.
3. Defrost and drain the spinach.
4. Add cream cheese, yeast and spring onions to spinach. Mix well.
   
5. Add salt and pepper to spinach mix to taste. Mix again.
6. Using a rolling pin, roll pizza dough very thin, about 1/2 cm (1/4 inch).
7. Cut 7 cm circles of dough from the rolled dough. I used the top of a skinny glass, but a round biscuit cutter would work well.
8. Consolidate remaining dough, roll and cut again. Keep doing this until you have used all the dough.
   
9. Divide the spinach mixture between the circles of dough, leaving a clear rim of dough to use to shut the calzone.
10. For each circle, wet the rim of the circle and fold it over into a half circle over the filling. Seal the edge.
11. Place calzones on two baking trays. Leave a little space (1/2 - 1 cm at least) between the calzones.
12. Bake until gently browned, turning once. (Approx 10 - 15 minutes)
13. Serve hot or cold.
    

I served them cold, in a large bowl. They were delicious and popular. They had a thin crust of pizza bread with a nice substantial serve of savoury spinach filling. I think that they would also be good in lunch boxes or made into approximately 6 larger calzones as part of a meal. The kids loved them, so I'll be making these again.

Caturday


Why would you want to use the printer? Why would you want the contents of your canvas satchel? Cat sleep is far more important than your paltry human concerns. (Featuring Berry sleeping on a satchel and wedged onto the printer tray. Bonus Switch staring at moths out the door.)

Note
* For the non-Australians, the Australian phrase "bring a plate" means to bring food to share appropriate to the type of event. It can mean to bring a main dish, a side, a salad, a dessert, finger food or any similar item to share. I'm told this phrase is far from universal and that it has led to confusion for non-Australians in the past.