Pizza is considered an American classic (even though it’s not historically American). I would rather make my own pizza than eat Domino’s or Pizza Hut. It’s so fatty and greasy that my temperamental stomach kills me after I eat anything like that. So, I just try to make my own pizza, most importantly, the crust.

I love love LOVE honey wheat crust. I believe California Pizza Kitchen has a honey wheat crust that is similar to the one I make, but it’s less doughy and usually is cooked until it’s hard. My crust is very doughy and is challenging to get thin, especially around the edges. But, I rather enjoy doughy pizza so I’m find with it. Hope you like it as well.

Now, the recipe calls enough pizza dough to make one huge pizza or two smaller pizzas. I used 50% more flour so I could make the calzones large enough. In saying this, I usually like to make two pizzas of differing flavors so that I can have a bit of two of my favorites. I made one Vegetarian BBQ calzone and another more “classic” calzone of spinach, mushroom, tomato and mozarella cheese. Again, I base my recipes on simplicity, cost efficiency, and tastiness. In saying this, you can make any kind of flavor you desire: pepperoni or 100% meat or another vegetarian option. As always, make it your own and enjoy!

Crust: whole wheat flour, packet of yeast, honey, water and salt

Vegetarian BBQ: frozen corn mix with black beans and broccoli, reduced fat mexican cheese, BBQ sauce, and one tomatoe

Spinach & Tomato: fresh spinach, mushrooms, can of tomatoes, and reduced fat mozarella cheese

Crust Instructions:

1. Warm a cup of water in microwave. Dissolve yeast into warm water. Place 3 cups of whole wheat flour in a large bowl. Make a hole in the middle of the flour.

2. Place 2 tbsps of honey in hole of flour followed by yeast mixture. Thoroughly mix the flour.

3. Let the flour mixture rise until double the size in warm place.

4. Split the flour in half. Make two rounds of flour and flatten as much as possible.

Spinach & Tomato Instructions:

1. In a frying pan, cook mushrooms until soft. Add chopped tomato and spinach until cooked fully.

2. Place sauce from frying pan onto half of the flour surface. Pile veggies onto the half of the flour. Cover the veggies lightly with mozarella cheese.

3. Fold the flour over the veggies. Where the two flour edges meet make sure you combine the edges well. The holes in the top of the calzone allows for heat to escape and the veggies to cook a bit better (at least in my experience).

Vegetarian BBQ:

1. Defrost half of a bag of corn, black bean and broccoli. While defrosting in the microwave, cover half of the other flour round with BBQ sauce (any flavor you like).

2. Place veggies onto the BBQ sauce. Cover with mexican cheese.

3. Fold the flour over the veggies.

4. Heat oven to 350. Cook until the dough is brown and until you are happy with the dough density (burned, browned, or neither). See below, for I like a little bit of brown on my crust but not too burned.

Also, just a note, put some spray onto your oven pan before you place your flour round onto the pan. This allows for the calzones not to stick to the pan while cooking.

Hope you enjoy! I paired a slice of each of the calzone with a bit of caesar salad. Enjoy!