You know, I tried really hard to think of a witty lead in for this blog post, but I’ve got nothing.  I blame it on Monday.  We’ll see how it goes tomorrow.  [Edit: Thankfully, Sophia saved me with a hilarious new title that you can read above.]

But anyway, tonight we made calzones. Partly out of a want of pizza on my part, partly out of a guiltiness that I pasted a calzone recipe into my Evernote months ago and had yet to get around to making it, and partly because Busch’s has ground sirloin on sale. I figured, heck, at home we already had cheese, peppers, onions, garlic, spinach and mushrooms and tomatoes…all we had to do is pick up the beef and some pizza dough.  AND we–and by “we” I mean “I”–could make enough for tonight and tomorrow’s lunch.  Genius.  Of course, once at the store, a few other items got added to the list, mostly due to Josh’s deep-seated love for pepperoni and pizza sauce.  And then it came down to the crust.

What to use?

I mean, at this point, I’m feeling too lazy to make my own pizza crust.  And by “this point,” I mean “I am always too lazy to make my own pizza crust.”  But Busch’s only had (that I know of) frozen pizza crusts, and we didn’t want to wait for a dough ball to thaw.  Nor did we really trust the canned Pillsbury pizza crust (don’t get me wrong–I am not a food snob (much) and and I have made more than my share of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls, biscuits and donuts but pizza dough?  In a can?   For some reason I won’t go that far).  And we didn’t want to venture to another store to get fresh pizza dough.  So I did the only reasonable thing: I picked up a couple of pie crusts.  Pillsbury.    My reluctance to embrace pizza-in-a-can also does not extend to ready-made-roll-out-pie crusts.  I’m a complex creature.  There’s no point in trying to figure it out.

But anyway, I reasoned that pie dough, while flakier, would work fine–not to mention, there’s two crusts in a package, I can get two calzones from each crust…that’s 4 crusts for like $2…and then I can be sufficiently lazy.  Jackpot.

So this is really a recipe-less recipe.  I know that I said up there that I have a calzone recipe stored away in my Evernote.  That doesn’t mean I actually used it.  Guidelines, people.  Recipes are guidelines.

So I:

• sautéed a small onion, a handful of chopped cremini mushroooms and two small diced bell peppers in a bit of olive oil
• added two chopped cloves of garlic and 1 chopped hot pepper
• added a handful of pepperoni (in hindsight, I wish I had cooked the pepperoni first and then cooked the veggies in the grease rather than in oil; ah well)
• added about a half pound of ground sirloin
• added salt, pepper and red pepper flake
• added a couple handfuls of baby spinach
• cooked it all down until the meat was cooked through and the veggies were soft
• stirred in a few tablespoons of sauce
• drained the pot, added in a bit more sauce and a big handful of cheese

And then I:

• heated the oven to 425F
• opened the pie crusts and slice each one in half
• one by one, I brushed the edges of each half with water, place a quarter of the meat mixture in the center and folded the crust over and sealed them
• placed them into two baking dishes because I was too lazy last night to clean the cookie sheets after I baked cookies (peanut butter chocolate chip, if you’re wondering)
• poked holes in the calzones with a fork to let steam out
• placed them in the oven for 20 minutes

While the calzones were cooking, I:

• checked my Twitter
• chopped a large zucchini and a large summer squash into half inch rounds
• heated up a bit of oil in the pan that I had used to cook the calzone filling
• tossed in the squash and zucchini
• sprinkled them with salt and pepper
• checked my Facebook
• stirred the veggies a couple times
• checked on the calzones
• poured myself a big glass of water (hydration is very important to me; it’s good for the skin)
• called Josh to dinner

When the calzones were done, I

• pulled them out of the oven
• topped two of them with more sauce and shredded cheese
• added the squash on the side
• saved the other two for tomorrow’s lunch
• ate
• decided I really like bullet points

The crusts were indeed quite flaky but also light, and it let the tastiness of the filling shine through more.  Josh approved.  And abided.  And just told me that my calzones fit perfectly into our sandwich bags.  Score.