Sometimes you have great plans for making a meal, other times you have to forage through your refrigerator and be creative. This was definitely one of those other times.

A few weeks ago, I cured and smoked two beef tongues and made them into pastrami. I have been eating it and sharing with others, but I still have almost an entire one remaining. Tonight I planned to make a nice hot, pastrami sandwich, but when I opened the refrigerator door, I noticed that there was a pizza dough ball that needed to be baked. My on the fly decision was to make a pastrami calzone.

First I preheated the oven with our pizza stone in it to 475°. Then I stretched out the dough ball on the pizza peel.

I diced up about 2 cups of the pastrami, half of a red onion, and a quarter of a red bell pepper.

I sauteed these ingredients with a 1/4 cup of whole grain brown mustard. While that was cooking, I shredded about a cup of aged Irish cheddar cheese.

After I took the pan off the heat, I began assembling my calzone. I put half of the meat, onion, pepper and mustard mixture onto the crust, then sprinkled the cheese on top, before adding the other half of the pre-cooked mixture.

I laid the other side of the pizza crust over the top, carefully folding the edges over one another to make a good seal. Then into the oven it went for about 18 minutes.

Once I removed it from the oven, I cut it in half.

The dominant aroma from the calzone was the vinegary mustard. My first taste combined the flavors of the mustard, the pastrami, and the onion. Those flavors completely over-powered the cheese and the red bell pepper, but sometimes that’s what happens when you challenge yourself with the contents of the refrigerator. It tasted pretty good, but perhaps a stronger flavored cheese and some roasted bell pepper would give it a little bit more. There is always the next time.