Latke Pizza

Happy Hanukkah! Maybe you're already eating your fill of latkes, but it seems like prime time to experiment with how everyone's favorite potato pancakes might work in pizza-form.

PREP:

• Chop a medium onion and saute in 2 tablespoons of oil over low heat until nicely browning.
• Peel 2-3 baking potatoes and use a food processor or box grater to shred them into thin strips. Add to the pan with the onions and a healthy pinch of salt and saute until the potatoes are cooked and starting to crisp around the edges. Stir often to prevent sticking.

TOPPINGS (layered in this order):

1. Simple Crust, par-baked
2. A generous spread of unsweetened apple sauce
3. The potato-onion mixture
4. A small amount of grated mozzarella

Bake at 450 degrees F for about 10 minutes until the cheese is melted and the potatoes look a little browner. Sprinkle the top with chopped chives or scallion tops and dollop with sour cream and additional apple sauce.

Fig Pizza Update

Just repeated our Fig Pizza, but this time added a balsamic reduction. Perfection.

To make the reduction, pour 1/2 cup of balsamic vinegar into a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, for several minutes until the liquid has thickened and evaporated out. It's best to do this right before you're ready to use it, otherwise it gets very sticky as it cools.

Fig Pizza

Kicking off a new season of pizza-making with a bang!

This is actually an old favorite by now, but with figs currently in season, it's prime time to try it again. In these pictures from April (*hanging head in procrastinator shame*), we used dried mission figs, but fresh ones are delightful as well.

TOPPINGS (layered in this order):

1. Whole wheat crust, par-baked with chopped fresh rosemary pressed into the surface before baking
2. Drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil
3. Grated mozzarella
4. Crumbled gorgonzola
5. Thinly sliced shallots
6. Sliced figs - lots of them
7. Thinly sliced pears (Bosc are nice)

Slide that pizza back into the oven at 425 degrees F and bake for about 10 minutes, until the pears soften and the cheese browns slightly. Top with freshly grated Parmesan and another flourish of extra-virgin olive oil.

Baked Potato Pizza

As if pizza weren't comfort food enough...

Baked Potato Pizza is the perfect rainy Saturday afternoon pizza, when you're ready for a lazy, heavy meal, a cold beer and quality time with your sofa cushions. You can bake the potatoes solely for the pizza, or use leftovers from another meal. Either way, don't plan to move anywhere for a few hours after dinner.

PREP:

• Wash 2-3 large russet potatoes (skin on!), wrap in tin foil and bake in the oven at 350 degrees F for 1 hour. OR, shortcut version, puncture the potatoes a few times with a fork and microwave them (without tin foil!) on high for about 10 minutes or until soft inside. Either way, allow the potatoes to cool a bit, then chop them into small cubes and toss them with a mixture of Italian herbs (we like Mrs. Dash's salt-free version).
• (Optional) Pre-cook 2 slices of bacon in a heavy skillet until they just start to get crispy.

TOPPINGS (layered in this order):

1. Very Best Pizza Crust Ever, par-baked
2. A few dollops of sour cream, spread very thinly over the crust
3. The cooked potato cubes, tossed with Italian seasoning
4. A handful or two of chopped chives
5. (Optional) The bacon, chopped into small bits
6. A healthy dose of grated mozzarella cheese (for gooeyness) mixed with a sharp cheddar cheese (for flavor)

Bake on a pizza stone at 450 degrees F for about 8 minutes, until the cheese is melted and the crust begins to brown. Sit back and put your feet up.

White Pizza with Roasted Cauliflower

For those of you who follow us regularly, it won't come as any surprise that we don't always make pizzas with red sauce. In fact, more often than not, we opt for some sort of alternative to a tomato-based spread. In spite of that adventuresome spirit, we haven't legitimately explored the White Pizza in all its glory.

Without scientific data to back up this claim, it seems like many white pizzas are topped with vegetables, while many red pizzas tend to involve meat. However, the density of high-fat dairy products on white pizzas (i.e. Alfredo sauce + too much cheese) probably makes them much less healthier than their crimson counterparts.

Enter Pizza Your Face.

We [pretend to] eat health-consciously and we eat a lot of pizza. So it stands to reason that we would look for a way to bring you a white pizza with a little bit nutritional value.

Enter the roasted cauliflower.

Before

After

Lookie here at all these great nutrients. And then start munching because you'll feel totally indulgent when you taste the cauliflower.

ROASTED CAULIFLOWER & GARLIC:
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F with the pizza stone in the oven. Cut apart a whole head of cauliflower (maybe 2?) into large florets and give them a good rinse. Cut the florets into 1/4-inch slices. Mix a pinch of salt into about 4 tablespoons of olive oil and toss the cauliflower with the oil. Roast them on the pizza stone for about 30 minutes total, turning every 10 minutes, until they are very brown and caramelized. They will shrink a lot. Cool them on a paper towel to absorb any excess oil.

For the last 8-10 minutes, throw in 4 whole garlic cloves, also tossed in olive oil, and roast them until the outsides start to brown and the insides are soft.

Keep the cauliflower away from your significant other, because otherwise the entire batch will disappear in about 5 minutes... 

GARLICKY WHITE SAUCE:
Melt 1.5 tablespoons of butter* in a small saucepan over medium heat. Allow it to get bubbly and start to brown. Once the foaminess starts to die down, stir in 1.5 tablespoons of flour and heat for 1 minute. Slowly add 3/4 cup of milk (room temperature is better than cold), then a pinch of salt and a dash of cayenne powder, and whisk non-stop for 5-8 minutes until the mixture boils and thickens. Throw in the roasted garlic cloves and blend until smooth.

*Yes, use real butter. A minor amount of fat makes it all worthwhile.

TOPPINGS (layered in this order):
To avoid making the crust soggy, be sure you have all of your ingredients prepped and ready to go up front.

1. Whole wheat crust, par-baked
2. Spread of the white sauce
3. Grated mozzarella and Parmesan - just enough to help the toppings stick, but don't go gooey on this one
4. Lots of roasted cauliflower
5. Thinly sliced shallots

Pop it all back in the oven at 425 degrees F for about 8 minutes. Top with freshly ground black pepper, crushed red pepper flakes, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a little extra grated Parmesan.

I'm salivating again just thinking about it.

Mini Pizzas

Oooh, take a look at this!

Look here:

And here:

Those are mini Lively Pizzas, made by yours truly for ML's birthday party the other week. Super fun! And fairly painless!

Just divide your dough into about 30 balls instead of 3. ML made the dough the day before the party, divided it into mini balls and stored them in the refrigerator, layered in a pizza box with parchment paper in between. Party-day morning, he rolled them out and par-baked them. Then just before the party I threw some toppings on, popped them in the oven 8 or 9 at a time (using a cookie sheet instead of the pizza stone for convenience) and ended up with super fun party food. Took a little bit longer than making ordinary-sized pizzas, but they were easier to munch on while playing pin-the-flag-on-the-treasure-map. (Pirate-dinosaur theme, you know...)

Brussels Sprout Pizza

Reasons why 2 and 1/2 months have passed since our last pizza post:

1. We got married in November
2. I started a new job in November
3. There was the usual sequence of holidays and holiday-related chaos
4. We had a lot of leftovers to wade through after said holidays
5. ML had a very significant birthday (starts with 4, ends with 0), accompanied by a significant party in January
6. We're sort of intimidated by our own Bacon Jam Pizza recipe

I know, I know ... what kinds of silly reasons are those? What sorts of pizza enthusiasts let such mundane excuses get in the way of pizza-making?!

Sigh.

We're ashamed.

Fortunately, we re-commenced our pizza-making endeavors with great success. We may even have overcome our fears from #6. Because in addition to these...

...you also get all of these:

(Shout out to Alton Brown for the flavor combo idea.)

In defense of our pizza-making neglect, we made this one twice. The beta version needed some tweaking to get the right balance of flavors, so here's the final product. Be generous with the Brussels and apples and a little stingy with the blue cheese. Trust me, it evens out in the end.

PREP:

1. If making your own dough or using store-bought raw dough, roll it out and par-bake it for about 3 minutes. (Curious why? Read our explanation here.)
2. Cook the bacon in a heavy skillet until it's almost-crispy-but-not-quite. Drain it on paper towels.

TOPPINGS (layered in this order):

1. Very Best Pizza Crust Ever, par-baked
2. Thin spread of Dijon mustard - enough that the surface is slathered but not goopy
3. Tiny crumbles of blue cheese (something generic is fine) - just a small amount, it doesn't take much to get the flavor across
4. Grated mozzarella
5. Thinly sliced onions
6. Sliced Granny Smith or other tart apple
7. A generous amount of thinly sliced Brussels sprouts - they shrink a lot in the oven, so put on more than what looks reasonable
8. Chopped bits of bacon (optional; veggers, if you omit the bacon, add an extra sprinkle of salt)
9. Sprinkling of crushed red pepper flakes

Bake that guy at 450 degrees F for about 10 minutes, or until the edges of the Brussels sprout leaves start to blacken. Drizzle it with extra virgin olive oil and overcome any residual childhood vegetable trauma.

Before:

After:

While eating:

(Skeptical about the sprouts? Let the Produce Geek himself tell you how great they are.)

Nacho Pizza, revisited

On a cold winter day nearly nine months ago, we first made the nacho pizza that inspired this blog. We were lazy, didn't want to go to the store, made a pizza with whatever we could find. It was awesome. Recently, we were reminiscing about that fortuitous discovery and revisited our dear nacho pizza recipe. With seasonal ingredients (and a little advance planning), it was quite possibly more delicious the second time around.

TOPPINGS (layered in this order):

1. Very best pizza crust ever, par-baked
2. Mix of grated cheddar and mozzarella cheeses
3. Cooked black beans, tossed with taco seasoning (It's easy to make your own seasoning! Combine the following: 1 tablespoon chili powder; 1/4 teaspoon each garlic powder, onion powder, crushed red pepper, dried oregano; 1/2 teaspoon paprika; 1 and 1/2 teaspoon cumin; 1 teaspoon each salt and black pepper.)
4. Thinly sliced onions
5. Finely chopped fresh tomatoes
6. Chopped green bell peppers
7. Sliced jalapeños

 Bake at 450 degrees for 7-8 minutes. Top with a sprinkling of chopped cilantro leaves.

 

 

 

Fried Green Tomato Pizza

Remember that movie? The one where the dissatisfied middle-aged housewife becomes friends with the elderly woman at the nursing home and hears a tale of love and abuse and suspected murder? The one where the main plot twist involves barbecuing the abusive husband and serving him to the mean police officer? (Oh sorry, did I spoil that for anyone...)

Movie titles aside, fried green tomatoes turn out to be the perfect pizza topping for all of you gardeners currently gazing wistfully at the never-to-ripen tomatoes left on your vines. I guess technically you could pick green tomatoes all summer long, but it seems like a fall food to me. A final recognition that the harvest is winding down and the cold is settling in.

FRIED GREEN TOMATOES:

1. First, prepare three bowls for breading the tomatoes. In one shallow bowl or pan, put 1/4 cup all-purpose flour.
2. In a glass measuring cup or similarly deep bowl, combine 1 lightly beaten egg and 1/2 cup buttermilk. (If you don't have buttermilk on hand, you can put a tablespoon of white vinegar in your measuring cup first, then fill up to the 1/2 cup mark with regular milk. Let it sit for a few minutes before adding the egg.)
3. In another shallow bowl or pan, combine 1/4 cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup cornmeal, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper.
4. Slice 3 medium-sized green tomatoes into 1/4-inch slices.
5. Dredge the tomato slices in the plain flour first, then dip them in the egg mixture, then dredge them in the cornmeal mixture so they have a nice coating. Flour doesn't stick very well to the juicy tomatoes, so it might not look even.
6. Pour about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of vegetable oil in a heavy skillet and heat on medium. Put the tomatoes in a single layer in the hot oil and cook about 2 minutes on each side, or until golden brown. 
7. Remove and drain on paper towels. Sprinkle with salt.

We decided to fry some jalapeños while we were at it, so just slice them up and follow the same steps above.

At this stage, I highly recommend helping yourself to a fried green tomato appetizer. Yum yum.

TOPPINGS:
Now, if you still have any fried tomatoes left after your taste-test, it's time to prepare the pizza itself. Layer the toppings in this order:

1. Very best pizza crust ever, par-baked with a drizzle of olive oil and 2 chopped garlic gloves sprinkled on the top
2. Grated mozzarella
3. The fried green tomatoes, evenly spaced across the top (and fried jalapeños if you choose!)
4. Chopped red bell peppers or mild cherry peppers
5. Chopped chives

Bake at 450 degrees for 5 minutes to crisp up the crust and reheat the tomatoes. Drizzle with a little more olive oil and a sprinkle of salt.

(Look at those two balls of dough in the background! More pizza en route!)

French Onion Soup Pizza

With fall rolling in and my fingers permanently cold already, the thought of a steaming bowl of soup holds a special attraction. The richly mingled flavors provide the ultimate comfort: the opportunity to be warm from the inside. So in honor of chilly mornings and yellowing leaves, get out your stock pots and your stirring spoons and let's make a big vat of ... pizza?

... I know, it's confusing. You came to this pizza blog, then I go making you all nostalgic about soup, and now we're back to pizza again. Well, it's not as convenient to cup a slice of pizza between chilly hands, but this one should still satisfy your deepest soup cravings.

ONION SAUCE:
French onion soup essentially involves caramelized onions simmered in a broth of wine and beef stock and topped with cheesy croutons. We modified the recipe to achieve a saucier consistency for smearing on a pizza crust (aka the cheesy crouton), and we made it vegetarian.

1. First, melt 1/3 cup unsalted butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add 2-3 large onions, sliced; 2 garlic cloves, minced; 2 bay leaves; a sprinkling of thyme leaves; and salt and pepper to taste. Cook about 30 minutes, stirring frequently, until the onions are very soft and caramelized.

raw onions

caramelized onions

2. Next, add about 1/2 cup red wine. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until the wine cooks off, about 5 minutes. Stir regularly.

wine added

wine cooked off

3. Sprinkle 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour over the onions and mix. Cook over low heat for about 10 minutes, stirring constantly, to cook out the raw flour taste.

with flour

4. Here's where our recipe veers off from the soup recipe. Add 1 cup of vegetable broth (or beef broth for the French purists among us) and simmer for 10 more minutes, stirring frequently, to thicken the mixture as much as possible. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

broth added

the final result

TOPPINGS:
Once you've got all that done (are your arms tired from stirring?), the pizza itself is a piece of cake (har har).

1. Whole-wheat crust, par-baked
2. A generous spread of the onion sauce
3. A solid covering of grated Gruyère (we ended up using about 1/3 pound of cheese)

Bake at 450 degrees for 7 minutes until the cheese is melted and a little bubbly. Enjoy with a fine French wine and an elegant side salad.

NOTE: If you wanted to actually make soup, you would add 2 quarts of beef/vegetable broth at step #4 above and simmer for 10 minutes. Alternately, if you have leftover onion sauce after making your pizza, you can easily transform it into soup by adding more broth. Then take some chunks of crusty bread, top them with thin slices of Gruyère and broil them in the oven or toast in the toaster oven until the cheese is melted. Float the croutons on the top of the soup to serve.

(See, you got a soup recipe after all!)

Veggie Squares

The other month, I heard an amusing story about a pizza competition, and although I more-or-less remember the story, I cannot remember where I heard it (friend? coworker?? radio???). I hear the voice, I think I even picture hand gestures, but I have no specific recall of who or where or whatfor. Fortunately (or not), ML has an equally vague memory of said story, so at least I'm not just dreaming up pizza anecdotes.

The tale goes something like this: There was a major pizza-making competition and a high-profile Italian chef was brought in to award the prizes. Contestants made all sorts of remarkable gourmet concoctions, using wonderful ingredients, but after tasting each recipe the chef announced, "Dees-a good, but eet's not-a pizza!"

All of that to announce — officially — THIS IS GOOD, BUT IT'S NOT A PIZZA.

At least not quite.

It contains three main components you might expect from a pizza: a bread-based crust, a layer of cheesy substance, and a variety of veggie toppings. After that it goes straight from not being a pizza to being plain old GOOD. Like clean-off-the-platter-in-a-matter-of-minutes good. Take it to a potluck and you will be winning awards from the other guests.

Now, this recipe is originally a convenience recipe that calls for biscuit dough from a tube, dry ranch dressing from a package and mayonnaise. But one of my rules of thumb when grocery shopping is to try only to buy foods that contain ingredients I might actually have in my kitchen. So no high-fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated oils. No mono-benzo-sodi-nonsense. Takes a bit more time to read labels and requires going without Twinkies, but makes me feel like the food is healthier and my body has fewer weird chemicals to digest. Let me tell you, you don't particularly want to read the ingredient list for refrigerated biscuits or dry ranch dressing. Also let me also tell you, everything about this is super easy to make from scratch with familiar ingredients — especially if you have a food processor.

THE CRUST:
The biscuit recipe comes from my dearly beloved "Super Natural Every Day" cookbook by 101 Cookbooks.

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees with a rack in the middle of the oven.
2. In a food processor (regular blade), combine 1&1/4 cups whole wheat flour, 1&1/4 cups all-purpose flour, 1&1/2 teaspoons salt and 1 tablespoon baking powder. Pulse a few times to mix.
3. Cut 1/2 cup cold butter into very small cubes and sprinkle across the top of the dry ingredients. Pulse about 20 times, until dry and sandy looking.
4. Add 1&1/3 cups plain yogurt and pulse a few times until yogurt is just incorporated. Don't over-mix! A few dry patches are fine.
5. Scoop out the dough onto a floured surface. Knead five times and then press out into a rectangle that is about 1-inch thick. Use additional flour as needed to prevent sticking.
6. Cut the slab of dough in half and stack on top of each other. Repeat the flattening and stacking two more times.
7. Press the dough evenly into the bottom of an ungreased 10"x14" jelly roll pan. 
8. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes until the top is slightly golden.
9. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

cutting in half

stacking the halves

THE CHEESE:
Have I mentioned it isn't really pizza? Well, this isn't really cheese either... Combine all of the following in a medium bowl and mix well. Spread evenly across the cooled crust.

• 8 ounces of cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley
• 3/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon seasoned salt
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/8 teaspoon dried thyme

THE TOPPINGS:
As this was originally a convenience food recipe, I suppose you could take the easy way out and chop your veggies with the food processor. However, all of those drooling potluckers will laud you for how pretty it looks, so take advantage of that. Personally, I like to select four brightly colored veggies and chop them evenly and finely. Then I lay them out across the surface of the cream cheese in narrow strips, both to make it attractive and to ensure that each square ends up with an even assortment of vegetables. Here I used cucumbers, red bell peppers, carrots and broccoli — but any of your favorites will work. Cut the not-a-pizza into squares and serve!

 

I'm not kidding about the potluck. We took this to a Labor Day gathering and it was gone before the burgers were even on the grill.

Pesto Pizza the Third

As fall gradually creeps in, it looks like the basil season is, sadly, winding down. My plants appear a little scraggly, less prolific. *sniff* But all sadness about the end of summer aside, now is prime time to mix up more pesto and make the most out of every last leaf. So if you're ready for pesto batch #2, here's a fresh and tasty combination of toppings to try out.

TOPPINGS (layered in this order):

1. The very best pizza crust ever, par-baked.
2. Generous spread of homemade pesto
3. Grated mozzarella
4. Chopped leeks
5. Slivers of bacon, par-cooked just enough to be not-raw, but not enough to be crispy (optional)
6. Halved cherry tomatoes and/or sliced tomatoes
7. Sliced bell peppers

Bake at 450 degrees F for 7 minutes and top with just a teensy sprinkle of extra Parmesan.