You may or may not know this already, but they sell pre-made pizza crust dough (not the baked crusts) in the refrigerated dough section, alongside the little cans of biscuits and crescent rolls. I’m sure these are great for pizza, but they’re even better for calzones!

If you don’t know, a calzone is like a pizza folded over on itself. Traditionally, they have traditional pizza ingredients like marinara sauce, Italian sausage, peperoncini, and cheese. But you can make them with just about anything. With the refrigerated dough, just slice it into fourths (it’s square-shaped). Here are some ideas:

Breakfast Calzones

Scramble some eggs and cook up some bacon or sausage. (About six eggs for four calzones worked for me. Use your own judgment with the meat.) Cut or break the sausage or bacon into small pieces, then put some eggs, bacon or sausage, and a slice of American cheese in the middle of the slice of pizza dough. Fold the corners in or fold it in half, seal it up the best you can (it doesn’t have to be completely sealed), and follow the baking instructions on the pizza dough.

These are not just for breakfast. They are awesome at all hours of the day.

Ranch Chicken Calzones

Cook up a pound to a pound and a half of chicken. (This goes a little faster if you cube the chicken prior to cooking.) You can season it with some salt and pepper, but don’t season it too much. Next, fry up some bacon. Break the bacon into small pieces, then pour it into a larger bowl with the chicken cubes and pour some ranch dressing over them. (This will taste much better if the dressing is not light dressing. The extra calories are worth it.) It’s important not to use too much—you don’t want a soupy mess of a calzone. Add ranch dressing slowly until everything is coated and there’s very little extra dressing in the bowl. Add a slice of mozzarella cheese, seal the calzones the best you can, and bake according to the directions on the can.

Italian Stuffing Calzones

Cook up some Italian sausage and thaw a package of frozen chopped spinach. Mix these with some ricotta cheese and an egg or two. (Find a recipe online for stuffed shells or ziti to get a more precise recipe for this.) You’ll probably end up with enough stuffing for two cans of pizza dough this way. This can optionally be served with marinara sauce poured on just before serving.

Pear and Brie Calzones

You’ll need about two ounces of Brie cheese and half a pear (both sliced) for each calzone. Make sure the pears are ripe enough to be cut easily with a fork. Layer the pear and Brie slices, occasionally sprinkling with nutmeg and possibly some salt. You can optionally add some crushed walnuts or macadamia nuts—just make sure they’re crushed into small pieces. You know the drill from there.

Buffalo Chicken Calzones

Whip some eggs, then pour some flour mixed with a little salt on a plate. Coat chicken strips with the eggs, then dip in the flour mixture. (Repeat for more breading—one dip will be minimal breading.) Sauté the chicken strips until done.

If you don’t know, Buffalo sauce is just two parts butter and one part Louisiana hot sauce (although Sriracha will work in a pinch). Mix up some of that—enough to coat the chicken—and then (you guessed it!) coat the chicken.

Dice a small red onion and add that to the mix. (You may not have to add all of it.) Get one of three things: blue cheese, blue cheese dressing, or ranch dressing. (Blue cheese will probably work best.) Add some of that to the chicken, being careful not to add too much. Optionally add some mozzarella cheese. Make into calzones and cook.

Greek Calzones

This is perfect if you have a lot of leftover lamb in your freezer like I do. Take lamb, olives, fresh tomatoes, fresh spinach, and feta cheese (all sliced into small pieces) and toss in some olive oil. Add some dried oregano (this is a classic Greek seasoning) and basil, salt and pepper, and two or three minced cloves of garlic (sautéed, if you’re feeling ambitious) into the mixture, and mix the whole thing well. You can optionally add some sour cream to make it a little creamier. Make into calzones and bake.

Got any other ideas? I want to hear them. Leave me some comments.

We have a new addition to the Gregory household:

That’s right. It’s a cactus.

Anyway, a few days after we got it, we found this:

It’s a little hard to see in that picture. It’s on the right side of the cactus. You see that? It’s cat fur.

I immediately suspected Zoey, given his late dealings with Tilly—but I’ve never seen Zoey jump up on the kitchen counter, and to the little buddy’s credit, he has been making strides to improve brain function, so I don’t think he’d try to make friends with a cactus.

Tilly had a good alibi (she was hiding in the closet the entire week), and she’s deathly afraid of anything that’s not a human or food, so her involvement with the cactus is highly unlikely.

That leaves one suspect, however unlikely: Franny. A quick visit to the Gregory lab determined that the white fur came from our only white cat, Franny. This was the last piece of evidence we needed—but we still needed a motive.

Here’s what we pieced together: It was a crime of passion. Zoey, Franny’s lover by lack of options, has turned all of his attention to the new cat on the scene, Tilly. Franny, driven mad with jealousy, threw herself into an abusive relationship with a cactus. After courting the cactus and martyring herself with it, Zoey’s ongoing refusal to leave Tilly’s side resulted in Franny’s eventual rage against the cactus, onto which she projected all of her feelings of hatred and rejection.

Mind you, she hasn’t actually committed the crime yet. But when she does, we’ll be ready!

I thank God every day I go to church and don’t hear these guys.

“He is like a Mountie
He always gets his man
And he’ll zap you any way he can—zap!”

Silly or genius? We may never know.

Now that it’s been a month or so that we got Tilly, it’s actually quite ridiculous that she will not accept that our other cats do not want to eat her. She still freaks out any time they come near. The repercussions of this are a story for another time, though, because I need to tell the story of how we’re keeping the cats apart.

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