Recipe: Mexican Calzone

One thing my husband loves is Mexican food. In fact, I sometimes call him the "Burrito King" because he loves to make burritos.

It’s his standard "go to" food: rice, beans, chicken or beef and cheese all wrapped up into a nice hand-held package. Sounds great, right? A husband who cooks! And for a period of about three months, he did. He made burritos…breakfast burritos, lunch burritos, dinner burritos. That explains the nickname!

Hey, I love Mexican food as much as the next gal, but there are only so many burritos one can eat. Although it was lovely of him to offer to cook for me, I just couldn’t get into the burrito-a-day groove, if you know what I mean.

So one night I noticed that I had a bunch of ingredients in my fridge, like chorizo sausage, Mexican cheese, salsa, and jalapeños and I thought to myself, "Quick! Start dinner before it becomes Burrito Night again!"

My brilliant idea was to make a quesadilla, but as I searched the fridge, I couldn’t find any tortillas. Well, at least that saved me from yet another you know what! However, what I did find was some whole wheat pizza dough. Hmm…this could work. Besides isn’t a quesadilla just a Mexican calzone?

Consequently, I did not become the "Quesadilla Queen." Instead, I created something a little different. An Italian quesadilla? A Mexican calzone? Call it whatever you want. Sometimes foods can have an identity crisis. There’s nothing wrong with this...that is if your recipe works out. Thankfully, mine did.

Mexican Calzone

Ingredients

• Whole wheat pizza dough
• 2 or 3 Chorizo sausage links (grilled and sliced)
• 1 diced small onion
• 1 diced tomato
• 1 diced red pepper
• 1-2 tbsp. of jarred Jalepenos (diced)
• 4 oz. of Mexican cheese blend (shredded)
• Your favorite salsa
• Sour cream

Directions

1. Preheat oven at 475 degrees.
2. Roll or stretch out dough enough to fit a pizza pan or cookie sheet.
3. Use flour to keep dough from sticking.
4. Add cheese, onion, pepper, tomato, salsa and sausage to one side of the dough, then fold dough over and press dough together at the ends to seal it so cheese doesn’t ooze out.
5. Brush some olive oil on top of the calzone or spray with cooking spray.
6. Bake in oven for about 12-15 minutes till dough is golden brown.
7. Let sit for about 5 minutes before slicing with a pizza cutter.
8. Serve with a dollop of sour cream or even guacamole or avocado slices.

This was such a delicious dish and the "Burrito King" was finally de-throned!

Ingredients purchased at A&P in Pomptain Lakes.