I have been cooking like crazy lately. After finding pile after pile of collected recipes, cooking magazine after magazine stacked by my bedside, I decided it was time to get organized. I spent all weekend sorting through my recipes and decided to set a goal of trying one new recipe a day (or close to it!). I know, it sounds ambitious even to me, but I figured I would count anything from an entree, to a salad dressing, to a new smoothie recipe, as long as it was “new” to me. The way I see it, there are simply too many yummy recipes in this world to be fixing the same thing week after week. Anyway, this goal of mine will definitely give me a lot of subject matter for this blog, but wanted to post a a quick dinner I made last night.
I am always looking for a meal that I can prep early in the day or when my kids are napping. This one was perfect. I made the calzone filling in the morning, popped it in the fridge and then when it came time to assemble the calzones I just warmed it up in the microwave for about a minute and a half. Then I assembled the calzones, put them in the oven and dressed the salad while they baked for 10 minutes. Simple!
I love that the skies the limit with the fillings. You could take a more Italian approach and stuff it with any of the usual pizza toppings or you could try beans, cheese, chicken, cilantro, & tomatoes or sauteed spinach, feta, garlic/onions….that would be good! If you have the time, make some pizza dough from scratch and you get bonus points!
Tex-Mex Calzones
Recipe adapted from Cooking Light
INGREDIENTS:
8 ounces ground turkey breast
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup chopped red bell pepper
1/3 cup chopped green bell pepper
1/2 teaspoon cumin
3/4 teaspoon chili powder
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup fire-roasted salsa (or salsa of choice)
1 can refrigerated pizza dough
3/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
2 teaspoons olive oil
DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees
2. Heat skillet to medium heat, add olive oil and cook ground turkey for about 3 minutes, stirring to crumble. Add the next 6 ingredients (onion through garlic) to pan. Cook another 3-4 minutes until turkey is cooked through but veggies are still crisp-tender. Stir in salsa of choice and remove from heat. Proceed with next step or refrigerate until ready to assemble (just warm filling in microwave).
3. Unroll crust, cut into 4 equal sized rectangles and lay on a cooking sheet coated with cooking spray. Spoon 1/2 cup of filling onto one side of the rectangle of dough. Top with 3 tablespoons of shredded cheese; fold dough over filling and press edges together with a fork to seal. Repeat with the remaining 3 dough pieces. Bake at 425 for 10-12 minutes or until browned.
Serve with salsa or sour cream.
Do you have an easy weekday meal that you can prepare ahead of time?
paige shelton says
Made this on Tuesday night and I love, love this one!! I had to use cornmeal pizza dough because that’s all they had at the store. It was a little less pliable, a little more crumbly when you are trying to put them together, but in the end the cornmeal tasted great with the tex mex filling. I served them with black beans. So yummy. Keep ’em coming, Mel!
Melanie Flinn, MS, RD says
Thanks for trying some recipes Paige and for being a “follower”! You rock! It is so fun to hear feedback! If I know folks are trying them, it definitely makes me want to post more! XOXO Miss you!
Omar Cardenas says
Mel, I made these and loved, loved, loved them. My wife did, too. This will be in the normal meal rotation. Keep up the good work.