Adventures of bread machine & Calzone recipe

Finally,I got my  bread machine last week. to be honest I did not buy it to make breads; we still buy breads; the main reason for it was to make dough. one of my friends bought hers around Christmastime and she made so many delicious things with it (in both food and dessert category) that inspired me to get one too. so today was the day I was home in the afternoon and installed the machine, read the manual and made my first dough with it. I used the dough to make my first Calzone ( or something similar to that ). Calzone is an Italian dish and you can think of it as pizza in a shell or hot pockets. so basically everything you use for pizza can be used here too. since the crust is the first thing you'll see ( not the inside) it is important to have perfect crust. here is the recipe that I used, and as I told you I made the dough with  bread machine. what bread machine does is mixing the ingredients very well and let it rest so the yeast can do its job. so you can use the same recipe of course but don't forget to mix it well with your hands ( good workout too) and then let it aside at warm place for about 1h30 min or so.
Let's get down to cooking, shall we!




For the crust:

• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tablespoons butter
• • 1 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 egg
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 2  teaspoon white sugar
• 
  

For the filling, everything is optional ;)
1/2 pound shredded beef
1  onion, diced very small
2 tablespoon and tomato paste
1/2 Red bell pepper
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil or 1 tablespoon dried
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups grated mozzarella cheese
salt and pepper


For crust top (mix all these together in a small bowl) :
1 egg
1 tablespoon of milk
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon of salt


Important : yeast activates around 43-46 C (110-115 F) no more no less. If you take out the water and milk from fridge, it is better to heat them up little but not up to boiling; it is better to measure their temperature to make sure the yeast gets activated or not killed.  the water should be slightly warm but not hot, you could also test it inside of your wrist.
Direction for bread machine: 
add the ingredients as the order written above. when you want to add the yeast make a hole in the flour and pour the yeasts there. make sure the yeast does not touch the liquids. and then start the proper program in your machine.
Direction to make crust (without bread machine)
1. Place about 2/3’s of the bread flour in the bowl. Add the water and yeast. Mix it (with the dough hook from your mixer or spoon)  for about one minute to hydrate the instant yeast.
2. Add the rest of the bread flour,  olive oil, the sugar, salt, Mix for about four minutes (at medium speed or  until the dough is formed.
3. Remove the dough to a large greased bowl. Cover and let the dough rise until doubled.


For the filling:
Since you don't want to add oil to the beef, mix your onions with meat in a pan and let it cook with its own oil. after a few minutes add the rest of materials and let them cook well.

Open a dough in a size that you prefer, I made one big and 2 medium size, put one layer of cheese in the middle, on top of it put one layer of your filling and then another layer of cheese. then fold from one side to the other so it looks like a half moon.  and then brush it with the crust topping. cook it for 30-35 minutes at 350F. the top should be golden.

Final comment: As I said before you can make the filling with anything you like. you could add different kind of cheese ( mozzarella, Parmesan, ricotta,...), different vegetable and also meat.
Hope you enjoy this, can't wait to do more experiments with my bream machine

Love,
Mania