Turkey Meatballs, Whole-Wheat Calzones, and Whole-Wheat Pizza

I spent the majority of the day in the kitchen! I made calzones, meatballs, pizza, hummus (which was a disaster), and some more granola! I made some turkey meatballs mini sized for our calzones, and some golf-ball sized ones that I froze for either spaghetti another night or maybe meatball sandwiches?! I am a big fan of making large batches and freezing so that I don't always end up in the kitchen making stuff! 

The meatballs are super easy, just a little messy since you really need to use your hands to mix up the ingredients real good! 

After getting the meatballs in the oven I made the dough. Both the calzones and the pizza use the same dough so I made four batches of it-- my stand mixer isn't big enough to hold more than one batch at a time. This was my first time making dough that used yeast so I was a little nervous but it was so easy! 

 

You drop the yeast in warm water and let it rest and it expands and works its magic!

After the yeast rests you mix in the olive oil and salt and stir gently before adding it to the flour!

I made mine in my stand mixer using the dough hook and it did all the work.

After the dough is made I oiled a bowl with olive oil, put the dough in, and covered it to let it rise... and rise it did! I would say the dough easily doubled in size.

While the dough was rising I made the cheese part of the fillings for the calzones. I mixed ricotta, parmesean, and mozzarella. Yumm! 

I used my new tortilla press to "roll out" the dough for the calzones and it was so easy and made them the perfect size and thickness. 

I placed the filling on one side of the calzone and then pulled over the other side and used a fork to seal them. I poked holes in top to help them from exploding out the sides. I was able to make 6 calzones from each ball of dough.

I froze all of the calzones (after we sampled one, of course) which will make for a very easy lunch or dinner when we don't have the time for something else! 

We like our pizza crust to be on the thin side so I was able to make 2 pizzas out of the one ball of dough and the thickness was perfect for what we like!

My "half" of the pizzas was mozzarella, parmesan, olives, and a little sauce. The other half was a LOT of sauce, turkey pepperoni, and olives. 

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Homemade Turkey Meatballs

Ingredients

·      1 lb ground turkey

·      ¾-1 cup breadcrumbs

·      1/3 cup parmesean cheese grated

·      2 eggs

·      garlic powder to taste

  

Directions

·      Preheat oven to 425º

·      Mix together all ingredients, I think the best way is with your hands

·      Roll them into the desired size ball

·      Put on a cookie sheet

·      Bake for 10-15 minutes

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