I’ve made my own French bread pizzas plenty of times, but always with marinara sauce. While watching The Food Network channel a few weeks ago, however, I tuned into an episode of the Barefoot Contessa, and watched her make this super simple recipe for Garlic Oil. As soon as I saw it, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it—Margherita pizza, which traditionally uses olive oil in lieu of marinara sauce. Garlic infused olive oil would add another dimension to the pizza, I thought. Plus, I absolutely love garlic on pizza. Especially pepperoni and fresh garlic, but that’s another story…

To make things easy on myself, and add a bit of fun, I picked up French bread to use instead of pizza dough. The day was hot, hot, and I didn’t want to spend time in the kitchen kneading and rising dough. To accompany the French bread, I bought Purple Cherokee (I believe) heirloom tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and fresh basil. That’s it. That’s all you need for these pizzas. Oh, and pinch of sea salt, and some fresh ground pepper. Okay, I also snuck in some fresh spinach leaves, but that’s optional. Pretty simple, huh?

Ingredients:
Garlic Oil, recipe here
1 loaf of French bread, or 2 small loaves
2-3 heirloom tomatoes, depending on size
1 ball of fresh mozzarella
fresh basil
sea salt
fresh ground pepper
fresh spinach leaves, optional

Guidelines:

Pre-make the garlic oil.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Cut the French bread in half length-wise, and into whatever size portions you want to eat. Brush the cut side of the bread with the garlic oil, and place in the oven on a perforated pizza sheet or pizza stone for a few minutes, or until the bread just begins to toast. Remove from oven.

Top the oil brushed bread with a sprinkle of sea salt. Add slices of fresh mozzarella, the spinach leaves if you’re using, and heirloom tomato. Bake for 5-8 minutes, or until bread is lightly brown and the cheese is melted. *Note: fresh mozzarella doesn’t melt the same way other cheeses do. It will get warm and spread slightly, but it largely keeps it shape.

Remove from oven, sprinkle with fresh slivers of basil and fresh ground pepper.

If you wish, chop some of the garlic in the garlic oil and sprinkle over the top as well.

You can stuff calzones with any pizza topping ingredient. In this recipe, I choose to roast sweet cherry tomatoes with olive oil and sea salt. Along with mozzarella, that was my main ingredient. Simple but delicious. For the sauce, I made a basil marinara sauce which lent a bright, fresh flavor to the calzone. It’s not necessary to use fresh mozzarella in this recipe, either. Not that it wouldn’t work, but it doesn’t melt as well, and will cost you twice as much for the amount you’d need to buy.

Ingredients:

one batch of pizza dough, divided into fourths; I LOVE the recipe on Julie Jams, available here
1 bundle or container of cherry tomatoes
olive oil
sea salt
¾ -1 lb. mozzarella cheese, grated

Basil Marinara Sauce Ingredients:

A word of caution: I didn’t measure these ingredients exactly… Feel free to adjust as you see fit.

one large bunch basil, about 2 cups, roughly chopped
3 fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped
large spoonful of tomato paste
1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
olive oil, about 3 tbsp.
fresh ground pepper
salt to taste

Guidelines:

Make your pizza dough several hours before you plan on using it. It will need time to rise.

Heat your oven to 400 degrees. Place cherry tomatoes in a roasting pan and drizzle with olive oil. Roast for about 10 minutes, then sprinkle the tomatoes with sea salt just as they begin to burst. Roast tomatoes for another 15-20 minutes, or until they have completely burst. Once the tomatoes have come out of the oven, keep the oven on to this temperature to bake the calzones.

In the meantime, prepare your basil marinara sauce. Combine all of the sauce ingredients except for the tomato paste into a blender or food processor and blend until relatively smooth. Transfer to a small sauce pan, add tomato paste, and heat on medium-low heat. Stir until the tomato paste is incorporated. Keep warm while calzones cook. You will use the remaining sauce for dipping.

Grate the mozzarella.

Once the dough is ready to be worked with, divide it into four equal parts. On a lightly floured surface, stretch the parts into relatively round shapes.

Over the entire circle, spread a thin layer of the basil marinara sauce.

On one half of the circle, place a mound of cheese. Place about 5 cherry tomatoes on top of the cheese, then top with more cheese.

Fold the other half of the dough over the stuffed half and press the edges shut. Prick several times with a fork so it will release steam and not burst. Sprinkle top with sea salt.

Repeat for each calzone. Makes four large calzones.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.