Buffalo Calzone

What's Cookin'?

Buffalo Calzone:  Doesn't that sound exotic?  Buffalo Calzone?  Quite international with the All-American Bison and Italian Calzone!  I had never tried buffalo before but went ahead and splurged while I was getting some organic grass-fed beef that Sprouts had on sale.  I was pleasantly surprised with the mild flavor and happy that I can get at least 2 meals out of my less than 1 pound of buffalo.  I was so happy with this healthy, easy meal price tag that I'm itemizing it below.

Ingredients:

1/2 pound (or less!) of browned ground buffalo meat
1/4 (or 1/3 if you like it saucier) organic spaghetti sauce
1 medium onion (sliced)
1 medium zucchini (sliced or diced to your preference)
1 pizza crust (homemade sourdough would be best; I used a store-bought one with only flour, salt, and yeast for the ingredients)
4 oz cheese (mozzarella would have been our first choice but it was too frozen to grate so I used Salvadoran Capitas cheese slices)(add more cheese if you like it cheesy - I was stretching out our cheese so I just covered the filling with it)

Directions:

1. Brown the meat and remove from the skillet.  My buffalo meat was so lean that I had to add cooking oil to keep it from sticking.
2. Cook the onion and zucchini together until softened.
3. Put the meat back in and stir in the sauce.
4. Roll out the pizza dough into a circle (roughly the size of a pizza)
5. Pile the stuffing on one half of the dough and put the cheese on top.  Fold over the top of the crust.
6. Bake at 400F for approx. 30 minutes until light brown or golden on top.

This was just enough for our family.  I served it with lettuce on the side.

Price tag:

Buffalo Meat: $2.00
Zucchini: free from garden
Cheese: $1.00 (technically my Salvadoran cheese was a gift but I put this in for what it would cost)
Pizza Dough: $2.00 (it was less but I rounded up)
Pizza Sauce: $1.00 (also was less but rounded up)
Onion: $0.35

Total:  $6.35!! ($5.35 for me)

So... that buffalo meat that seems so expensive and out of reach can be incorporated into a meal for little cost.  With its nutritional density, less goes further in health benefits as well.

Enjoy!

This recipe is part of Real Food Wednesday .