Trouser Legs for Meatless Monday Dinner?

What's that you said? That's right, trouser legs -- also known as calzoni, literally translated from the Italian.

Last night was one of our "re-purposing" nights, you know, making use of things from the refrigerator and pantry that just happen to be sitting around. Not quite a Refrigerator Orphans event, but pretty close. Cynthia makes her own dough which we typically use to make Grilled Pizza. She usually makes more than we need and freezes the unused portions for later use. Initially, we had decided to make pizza so the dough was already out defrosting when she called me to say the plan had changed and we were doing something different and that she was going to use up some of the "never-ending supply of zucchini" that our garden seems hell bent on producing. We also had a red pepper from our garden and an eggplant from the farmer's market sitting around. So, vegetable and ricotta calzones it would be.

Ingredients

• 1/4 Pizza dough recipe (find the recipe here)
• 1 medium red bell pepper - cut into strips
• 1 small eggplant - cut into 1/4" thick pieces (see picture), lightly salted and left to sit on the counter for 10 minutes or so
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 medium zucchini cut in half and then into half moons about 1/4" thick
• couple cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
• handful of breadcrumbs (used Ian's organic whole wheat panko)
• EVOO, a tbsp or two
• salt, fresh chopped herbs of your choice, we used marjoram and parsley
• 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
• couple of slices of fresh mozzarella or goat cheese
• 1 cup tomato sauce
• 1/4 cup your favorite grated cheese, we used locatelli romano 

Preparation

• Saute onions in EVOO for a couple of minutes, add eggplant and cook for another couple minutes
• Add zucchini and pepper and continue to cook until all veggies are soft, on medium high heat to develop some carmelization.  Toss in the garlic, herbs, breadcrumb and cheese, adding a little extra EVOO if necessary.  Mix and let get nice and crusty.  Set aside and let cool.
• Divide the pizza dough in half and roll out to about 1/8" thickness. Roughly round shape is helpful.

• Place a health scoop of the veggie mix offset from the middle of your chosen shape leaving enough room around the edges to form a seal later
• Add a healthy 1/4 cup dollop of ricotta cheese on top of the veggies along with some of the fresh mozzarella that you've ripped apart - season the cheese if you like 

• Fold the dough over onto itself, making a "turnover" and crimp the edges together using your fingers. Making a good seal here is important to keep the insides from leaking out during cooking - it's imperative the top edge of the top portion gets tucked under the bottom edge that you're pulling up and over the top edge.  Got that?  

• Place the calzone on a lightly oiled sheet pan to prevent sticking.
• Cook at 425 degrees F for approximately 15 minutes. Brushing the top with a little oil will promote better browning, as will using your convection oven.

• Remove from the oven and serve hot with warm sauce on the side for dipping and extra grated cheese.  Cold beer makes an excellent accompaniment.