Labor Day: Calzones are basically the same concept as Wellington

Ok, stick with me on this one.  Both use a pastry crust to encase deliciousness, and so when coming up with my plan to make a calzone, I kind of cheated and stole some hints from making Beef Wellington.

"That's stupid.  Like half of all food ever is 'put tasty things in dough.' Pierogis, wontons, bao, Cornish pasties."

Yes that's true, and Cornish pasties were the lunch of choice for miners as they could be eaten easily.  Therefore, calzones are the most appropriate food choice for Labor Day.  (Side note for Labor Day: I was unable to come up with a valid way for scientists to unionize due to the way the grant system works.  It basically makes everyone "self-employed" by requiring them to find their own funding sources.  Something of a conundrum.)

See, I totally had a plan with this.  It may not have been a good plan, but still.

Anyway, calzones:

1) Let dough rise.  I let the dishwasher dry cycle heat that comes up through the counter do the first half, and then used the heat from the oven vent for the second.

I'm lazy, so I bought WF dough.

 2) Make ricotta filling.  Tub of ricotta, an egg, a squeeze of garlic paste (or minced, but I had the paste), some basil, and some parmesan.  Mix and then put into the fridge to let the flavors meld.

 3) Show selection of ingredients used, but don't take pictures of intermediate steps.

 4) Divide dough into four pieces.

 5) Assemble!  From the bottom up: slice of prosciutto folded in half, sauteed mushrooms with a small thinly sliced onion (these two steps are the Wellington influenced.  I wanted to use the prosciutto to keep the bottom crust from getting soggy, and the mushrooms were there to add plausible healthiness), ricotta paste, Italian sausage crumbles (squeeze sausage from the casing, and then chop in the pan with a spatula), half slice of provolone, three nicely spicy salami slices.  Fold over, crimp the edges, and then cut some slices in the top to vent.  I put three into the freezer (since I'm not sure that the fridge would keep the dough suitably firm), and then cooked the fourth.

 6) This could probably be done with cookie sheets or pizza stones or whatever, but I decided to go with a different route.  After cooking the mushrooms and sausage, I put the cast iron pan back into the oven to get back up to temperature (I used 375), and then when the calzones were ready, I splashed some olive oil in the pan, and slid it in.  This lets the bottom get nice and crispy, and keeps everything in one place in case it leaks.

 7) Slice, eat, realize it's way too much food for one meal.  I think the other three are a bit smaller, but I may end up with more calzone than necessary.  I should get salad stuff, and then eat a salad and half of one of these instead.  I'm not saying I will do that, just that I should.  Also: dippable pizza sauce is required.

Pizza cat says so.

 And because internet, rice people in a curry bathtub:

Random thought: I just saw an ad for this movie "Looper."  The mob sends Bruce Willis back in time so that that guy who's popular now can kill him, but they're the same guy.  So assassin guy has to kill his future self, I guess.  Is the future mob run by idiots?  I'd assume that the mob has more than one assassin guy.  You know, just in case you need to have Assassin A killed, you call in Assassin B.  See, that's not even assuming time travel, why would you use different rules with time travel?  That's just stupid.

Pile of links:

• Hawaii pretty much never gets hit by hurricanes.
• Bunnies!
• I think I want caramel apple bread now.
• I also kind of want that Pallet Town travel ad.
• This was my thought when I saw the news stories about organic food as well.  I mean, a carrot is a carrot pretty much.  However, an organic carrot is less likely to have pesticides and crap on it.  I don't really see how this study says anything people shouldn't already realize.
• I will never tire of pictures of pandas falling down slides.  Why do we not have like a five hour movie: Pandas Vs. Slides.  I mean, they made that stupid Battleship movie, and that Aliens Vs. Cowboys movie was apparently kind of crappy.  P vs. S would be cheap to make, and would probably sell piles of tickets. To me. I'd buy piles of tickets.
• Dogs: Also not very good with gravity.