Bread Machine Calzone

As some of you may know, Ed went elk hunting last October. They were successful. They had the meat processed into recognizable cuts - top sirloin, chuch roast, ground, etc. And they had a lot made into sausage, cut with pork. Sausage doesn't quite have the culinary range of, say, ground meat, so we still have a lot of it in our freezer. And we're trying to work our way through it.

I decided one night in February to make calzones for dinner, and fill them with sausage, cheese, green peppers, a little pepperoni. I was going to use my old standby pizza dough recipe or whatever but just to see, I did a quick internet search and came upon this. You know I love to use my bread machine. So I just put the ingredients in, processed the dough, rolled it out and filled it up. Per the instructions it makes one big calzone that you slice, but you could just as easily divide the dough into 4 rounds and have everyone make their own classic turnover-type calzone. Either way, it's easy, it's dinner, and in our case it used up another 1/2 pound of elk sausage!

Bread Machine Calzone

Dough:
1 1/4 cups warm water
3 cups bread flour

2 tsp active dry yeast

1 1/2 T white sugar
1 tsp salt

1 tsp powdered milk

Fillings:
(or just do your own - whatever you like)

3/4 cup sliced Italian sausage
3/4 cup pizza sauce
1 1/4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
2 T butter, melted

1. To make the dough, place water, flour, yeast, sugar, salt and powdered milk in the pan of the bread machine, in the order suggested by manufacturer. Select Dough cycle. After cycle is completed (mine takes 1 1/2 hours), roll out dough on lightly floured surface.

2. Meanwhile, brown sausage in large skillet over medium heat until cooked through. Drain excess fat.

3. Preheat oven to 350F.

4. Shape dough into a 16 by 10-inch rectangle. Transfer to a lightly greased cookie sheet, and spoon pizza sauce lengthwise down the center of the dough, followed by the browned sausage and the cheese. Make diagonal cuts 1 1/2 inches apart down each long side of the dough rectangle, cutting to within 1/2 inch of the filling. Criss-cross cut strips of dough over the filling and seal tears/edges with water. Pinch and tuck ends tightly. Brush top of calzone with melted butter.
5. Bake at 350 for 35 to 45 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven and cool for at least 5 minutes before slicing and serving.Recipe from Kevin K. on Allrecipes.com