Butternut Squash and Apple Calzones

Last fall (or maybe even the fall before) I discovered this recipe and bookmarked it as one I wanted to try. Then I promptly forgot about it, because it wasn't on my Google Docs spreadsheet where I keep my official list of recipes to try. A couple months ago I saw it linked from one of the food blogs I read and thought, "That sounds good! I need to make that!" Only to discover a few days later that I still had it bookmarked from the previous year.

I must say, that when these babies came out of the oven, they were worth the yearlong wait. They were crispy on the outside, and steamy, herby, and just the right amount of gooey on the inside. Sadly, they didn't reheat well; so if you live alone, I'd recommend holding off on these until a day you have friends over.

For this recipe, I cheated and bought pre-cubed butternut squash in a bag in the produce section, rather than peeling, seeding, and cubing my own. I also used store-bought pizza dough, but you could certainly do homemade dough if you'd like. Fun fact: the day after I did my shopping for this recipe, I saw the very pizza dough I'd just bought featured in a Rachael Ray magazine.

I made a half batch (4 calzones) of the Happyolks recipe and wound up with far more filling than would fit in the amount of dough I had. So I've adjusted amounts below to produce what I think will be the right ratio of filling to dough. The filling is good by itself, though, so having extra of that is not necessarily a bad thing!

Butternut Squash and Apple Calzones

Yield: 8 calzones; 4-8 servings, depending on how hungry you are and what else you might be serving with these
Adapted slightly from Happyolks
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Ingredients
2 (13.8-oz.) tubes of refrigerated pizza dough (I used Pillsbury artisan pizza crust with whole grains)
1 Tbsp. butter
3-4 cups cubed butternut squash
1-1/2 small sweet onions, chopped
3 tsp. dried rosemary
1 tsp. dried sage
2 apples, cubed (I used gala)
1 clove garlic, minced
Pepper and coarse salt (such as kosher or sea salt)
Zest of one lemon
Mozzarella cheese, grated
Olive oil

Directions
Melt butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add squash, onions, rosemary, and sage; sauté until onion is soft, about 8 minutes. Add apples, garlic, and a dash of salt; sauté 2 more minutes. Remove from heat. Add lemon zest and stir to combine.

Preheat oven to 500. Prepare a 9 x 13 cookie sheet with parchment paper.

On a floured surface, roll out dough into a rectangle, about 1/4 inch thick. Cut into 4 rectangles. Scoop about 1/2 cup of butternut squash mixture onto each rectangle. Add pepper and a bit of mozzarella. Fold over the other half of the dough and pinch around the edges to seal tightly. Transfer calzones to cookie sheet. Using your hand or a pastry brush, spread olive oil on each calzone and sprinkle with salt.

Bake for 5-15 minutes, until calzone is browned and warmed through. The recipe I followed said to bake for 12-15 minutes; mine took 6.

Nutritional Information Per Calzone (compliments of My Fitness Pal)
372 calories; 11.3 g total fat; 57 g total carbs (6.1 g dietary fiber; 9.3 g sugars); 11.5 g protein