Happy Meat Free Monday lazy green people!

Apologies that this weeks recipe is so late, I wanted to cook it for my own dinner tonight and test out just how easy it was! At first sight it might seem a bit of a faff – as there is quite a bit of prep – but once you get that bit done, these delicious parcels take only 10 minutes to cook! (Plus you’ll likely have left over cashew cheese and dough left for an even lazier dinner next time!)

So without further ado…here is my seasonal Pumpkin and Spicy Cashew Cheese Calzone recipe; a perfect warming treat after an evening of carving Halloween lanterns!!

Pumpkin and Spicy Cashew Cheese Calzone

Ingredients

For Pizza dough:

• 175g strong white bread flour
• 175g plain white flour (or whatever you have to hand, I used rye)
• 1/2 tsp. powdered dried yeast
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 160ml warm water
• About 1/2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 handful coarse flour (rye, semolina or polenta), for dusting

Filling

• 1 small pumpkin, fleshed out
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• Handful of spinach or chopped mushroms
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
• 1 tsp. chilli flakes
• 1 tsp. dried sage

For Cashew Cheese:

• 1 cup of cashews
• 3 cups of water
• 2 tbsp. lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp. cumin
• ½ tsp. piri piri seasoning (optional, I like my spice!)
• 2 tbsp. nutritional yeast

Method

1. Start by making the cashew cheese. Soak the cashews in a bowl of water overnight (or up to 24hrs if you can). Drain, and blitz in a food processor with the lemon juice and 2 tbsp. of the water they were soaked in. Mix in the spices and nutritional yeast and set aside in the fridge to cool.

2. Next up is the pizza dough. You may already have some in the freezer from my previous Olive, Sundried Tomato and Pinenut pizza recipe but if not, check out the recipe and follow the easy steps there. But essence, don’t be too precious and just mix it all together!

Note: I used less ingredients for the calzone than in the pizza recipe, as I was only cooking for two.

3. Third step is the filling. If like me you’re a super keen bean for Halloween, you may have already hollowed out your pumpkin. If not, dig in and grab that orange flesh! It doesn’t need to be in tidy chunks just scoop it out and set it aside in a bowl (don’t forget to save your seeds for roasting!).

4. In a deep frying pan, heat some oil and gently fry the onions, mushrooms, garlic, sage and chilli flakes. Add the pumpkin flesh and simmer on a low heat for 10 minutes; occasionally mushing the pumpkin to a pulp as it softens. If using spinach add right at the end.

5.  Now get filling your dough! Separate your dough into fist sized balls and flatten out into thin disks. You want them to be about 1-2mm thick so they are thin enough to crisp up but not so thin they fall apart.

Layer the pumpkin mix and then cashew cheese in the center of the dough, but leave enough space around the edge to seal. Fold the dough in half and seal along the edges with a fork.

6. Place the calzones on a lined oven tray and bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes on 200 degrees.