Recipe Monday: Chicken Pesto Calizone

Ohhh y'all... this was yummmm-y! (PS in real life, I NEVER use the word y'all... I'm not sure why, but I have always adamantly despised the word or contraction or whatever it is. So I was going to say, "Ohhh girls..." but then I thought, what if boys are reading my blog? Doubtful, but maybe! I did't want them to feel left out... So "y'all" it was. Don't judge.) The homemade calizone is definitely a weekend meal, as you have to let the dough rise for a couple of hours... I knew this, so I decided to make it on Sunday and, of course, I still didn't start cooking until 6ish and then A Time to Kill came on so I cooked/watched at the same time which realllly slows me down... I (woke Brandon up and) served dinner promptly at 9:15pm. Oops. But it was soooo good, totally worth the wait!

CHICKEN PESTO CALZONE

**This recipe makes FOUR calizones... We wrapped two up in cling wrap and a Ziploc and froze them or if you are feeding more than two people, you can serve them all at once! They are supposed to be individual size, but there was no way I could have eaten a whole one by myself!!

What you need:

     FOR THE DOUGH:

1 1/2 C Luke Warm Water

1 tsp Dry Active Yeast

1/2 tsp Sugar

1/3 C Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 tsp Salt

1 1/2 C Unbleached Bread Flour

2 1/2 C White Whole Wheat Flour

     FOR THE GOOD STUFF:

1 C Pesto

3 C Cooked Shredded Chicken (I used 2 chicken breasts and it was plenty)

4 Oz Shredded Provolone Cheese (Or Mozzarella)

Extra Virgin Olive Oil (Just enough to drizzle on top)

Italian Seasoning

Adapted from My Kitchen Addiction

What you do:

(1) To make the dough, mix together the lukewarm water, yeast and sugar. Whisk, until the yeast and sugar are dissolved in the water.

(2) Add the olive oil, salt and bread flour. Stir until smooth.

Action shot by my lovely husband. Ha.

(3) Slowly add the whole wheat flour, stirring with a wooden spoon until the dough starts to separate from the bowl. Knead in the rest of the whole wheat flour until the dough is smooth.

(4) Move the dough to a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap (seal it tight) and allow the dough to rise for 1.5-2 hours.

Now would be a great time to watch a movie, do two loads of laundry or just kill two hours reading blogs.

(5) Once the dough has risen, preheat the oven to 475. Lightly spray a baking sheet with Pam and set it aside for later.

(6) Lightly cover a cookie sheet with flour and divide the dough into four portions. Doing each calizone, one at a time, spread the dough into a oval shape. (I found this was easiest if I held up one side and lightly pulled it and then slowly rotated my way around the oval, instead of rolling it out like a pie crust.)

(7) Shred your cooked chicken. **Helpful Hint: If you have a KitchenAid Mixer, drop your cooked chicken breasts in the bowl, lock the head down and turn your mixer on a medium speed with the normal paddle mixer. Your chicken will shred perfectly on its own without scorching your fingers or taking ten minutes!

(8) Combine the shredded chicken and the pesto.

(9) Spoon 1/4 of the chicken pesto mixture onto half of the dough.

(10) Top with shredded mozzarella and/or provolone cheese. I used both...

(11) Fold the dough over the filling and pinch the edges to seal the calizone. (At this point you can wrap it once or twice in plastic wrap, Ziploc it and freeze it!)

(12) Move calzone to the Pam covered cookie sheet. Drizzle olive oil on top and season with Italian Seasoning. Bake for 12-14 minutes. *I dipped mine in Ranch dressing. Brandon dipped his is pizza sauce... Both were good!!

We REALLY enjoyed these cheesy calzones! And they were even rather healthy!! Next time Brandon and I thought it would be fun to make each one a little different - try our hand at some sausage, pepperoni, chicken basil with pineapple, etc.  The options are limitless!!

**A NEW NORMAL UPDATE:

Thank you all so, so much for your sweet calls, emails, texts, facebook messages, and most importantly prayers! I spent all of last week literally exhausted (hence the lack of blogging). I'm not sure if being worn out stemmed from the stress or the medicine or the newly thinned blood or what, but I definitely not my normal self and I was not loving it one bit! When you are on blood thinners, the goal is to have your INR (International Normalized Ratio) fall between 2 and 3. Thursday's blood test showed that my INR was 1.6, but on Saturday I produced a PERFECT 2.5!! Woohoo! This morning I went in for another check and I dropped down to 2.0, but it was good enough for me to be considered "therapeutic" which basically means I'm level enough that I can stop the shots in my belly - PRAISE THE LORD!!! Literally. So Wednesday, is my FINAL shot day! I'm not sure who is more excited - me or Dr. Husband. (I'm not sure I've been the ideal patient... Bless his heart.) I'll go in again Thursday and we'll see what my INR looks like without the shot and hopefully, cross your fingers, say your prayers, it'll still be in the golden 2's.

I'm so truly thankful for everyone's love and support and prayers! The silver lining to having this scary encounter is being overwhelmed by the outpouring of concerned friends and family... Every single day - life is sooooo good! Thank you sweet friends for blessing me constantly!!

Be Blessed!

Raegan