Calzones with Roasted Tomato Marinara Sauce

This calzone recipe all started from this yummy Roasted Tomato Marinara Sauce I pinned on Pinterest.  My niece tried it out, told me how yummy it was & so I had to check it out.  She was right, it is soooo yummy!!

It's such an easy recipe because you throw all the ingredients in a pan and let the oven do the work.

I followed her recipe except, as you can see in the pictures, I used fresh basil leaves instead of oregano.  We're a basil kind of family.  On yeah, and I didn't really measure anything, I just kinda guesstimated.  I can do that cause I'm married to an Italian and that's what they do. ;)

Yummy, look at all that roastedness.

In the middle of making all this goodness, I had to stop and tie up a cabinet with ribbon.  My littlest little just didn't want to stay out of here.  She's the baby of the family and she's determined to help me experience all the fun things that the others never let me experience. (ie. not staying out of cabinets.)

This is the sauce after it's been in the food processor.

The first time I made this sauce I wanted to make something besides pizza with it, so I thought I'd try my hand at Calzones, which I'd never made before.  Here are some of the fillings we used, but of course, you can use anything you like.  We always use the fresh mozzarella because it's so much better then any other mozzarella.

I use a french bread recipe for my pizza dough, so I thought it would be perfect for calzones as well.  Thank you Vicki for this great french bread recipe, it makes the best pizza & calzone dough.  Here is the dough recipe which I make in my bread maker instead of following the real instructions.

Calzone dough (makes 8 calzones)

-1 TBS Yeast

-1/4 C Warm tap water

-1/2 TBS sugar
Mix ingredients together and let dissolve and rise a bit.
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-1 C Hot water

-1 1/2 TBS Sugar

-1/2 TBS Salt

-1/4 C Oil

-3 C Flour
Add all ingredients to bread maker & start the dough cycle.  After all ingredients have been mixed add in the yeast mixture and let the dough cycle finish.

After your dough is ready, separate it into 8 equal pieces, or less if you want bigger calzones.  Roll out each piece into a circle on a floured surface and fill with marinara sauce and other fillings.  Fold over the dough to cover your fillings and fold over the edge and use a fork to help seal.

Brush olive oil over the top of dough and bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes or until golden.

These are so good that ALL my children liked them.  That's a miracle in this household, so we've made these 3 times in the past 3 weeks. :)  They even like the sauce!!  Score one for this mom & thanks A Food Centric Life for the amazing marinara recipe!!  I've got some in my freezer now.  

*This is the best picture I could get of the inside because my family wanted to eat instead of me taking pictures, so I didn't check the pictures and now all the food is gone. :}