author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

OK, so, Pot Pie Calzones. These are something you might do if you have leftover pizza dough and would like to use it up in a non-pizza kind of way. Mine were carnivorous, but yours don't have to be. This is a very flexible sort of use-up-the-leftovers meal.

Here's the short story version: Take sufficient pizza dough as for an individual-sized pizza. Roll it out just as thin as you can make it. Cut it into two pieces. Drape these in/over two mini-loaf pans. Fill with some kind of filling. Fold the ends of the dough over the top. Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes. Eat one "calzone" hot today and the other cold tomorrow.

Here's the longer story.

John's been doing a lot of cooking lately, which makes me very happy and also well-fed. For our housewarming party, he made a large batch of pizza dough and offered to make pizzas on demand for anyone who asked for one. No one took him up on it, possibly because there was also red beans & rice, orange baked tofu, stuffed mushroom caps (contains dairy), sauteed mushrooms (contains no dairy), cookies, cherry tomatoes, a watermelon, potato chips, and I forget what else. (I bought some andouille sausage to serve as an optional side to the red beans & rice. What with the rest of the menu, I forgot to take them out of the refrigerator, and wound up eating them all by myself alongside homemade creamed corn. I WIN AT DINNER. Also, I saved the drippings, because I'm from the south and it's, like, a rule.)

So a couple days later, John made pizzas for the two of us for lunch. Which was delicious and induced serious food coma--but it did not use up all the dough. He was all set to throw out the remaining two lumps ("It's only good for six days or so, and I'm not going to make pizza again that soon") but I wouldn't hear of it. "I'll use it up somehow," I said.

A week passed. "Will you please use that dough?" "Oh, right, yeah. Will do! Any minute now."

Finally, I took one of the two lumps, worked it into as thin a sheet as I could (it is important to let the dough warm to room temperature before attempting this! Trust me), and draped it over a single normal-sized loaf pan. Into this "deep dish pizza" cavity I stuffed a stuffing which involved

• a quarter onion, chopped, sauteed
• one pound ground beef, browned
• the leftover non-dairy sauteed mushrooms from the party
• gravy made with the reserved drippings from the andouille sausage
• enough frozen peas to comprise a comfort food ratio

And baked this as described above.

It was delicious. Only problems were, the middle tended to fall apart due to its high volume-to-surface-area ratio, and I didn't know when to stop eating. I damn near devoured it all before I realized I was ready to burst. Between that and a bottle of beer, I was down for the count.

Next night, I did it again, only in two mini-loaf pans instead of a single normal loaf pan. And the filling was much more simple: a pound of bulk italian sausage, gravy made from the drippings left in the pan after browning the sausage, and more frozen peas. The results were much less unwieldy and, very importantly, included a natural stopping point. I ate one of the resulting "calzones" on a plate with knife and fork and put the other away. That one (pictured here) I ate tonight, cold, with my hands, over a plate.

(Leftover pot pie calzone tonight because the Bombshells footage-watching party had to be rescheduled. Vegan dal and curry paneer will happen some other night. Not sure when, but it'll be soon.)

One last snafu: You can see in the photo how I rolled up the dough on the long sides of the pan, right? OK. Don't do that. The resulting extra-thick ridge of dough was difficult to chew and almost impossible to cut without smooshing the loaf. Probably better off to just lay the excess flat in layers rather than try to make fancy edging.

And that's the story of Pot Pie Calzones. Go forth and enjoy with whatever filling your tummy most desires.