Archives for posts with tag: pizza

Photo Aug 14, 8 25 59 PM

“People who love to eat are always the best people.” – Julia Child

Pizza to me is many things: the ultimate comfort food, my guilty pleasure and a blank canvas. In being a blank canvas, pizza allows the home chef to “get-rid-of” excess produce before tossing it in the compost. I am pretty sure most home gardens are still over flowing with zucchini and squash this week, while I happened to go overkill at the Farmer’s Market and purchased a pre-selected giant bag of the delicious summer staple. Did you know that August 8th is even Sneak Zucchini onto your Neighbor’s Porch Day?

I have been putting zucchini in everything, my eggs in the morning, salads, on the grill, in pasta dishes, and I am down to my last single zucchini and yellow squash. Clearly this calls for thinly rolled pizza dough and squash sliced on the mandolin, with a sprinkling of goat cheese, olive oil, fresh basil, salt and pepper. Voila!

 

Photo Feb 20, 7 57 17 PM

Cheese + bread and I am happy on my desolate island, maybe let me bring soft bedding, a few good books, and Laura Mercier body cream in Fresh Fig, but most importantly the good cheese and bread. I have always been a super practical girl. Obviously I am a total sucker for pizza and I know I am not alone. Last week I made a grown up version at home, a throw back to when we used to make mini pizzas on english muffins as kids and got so excited to put on our own toppings. There are so many ways to add healthy, fresh, seasonal ingredients to pizza all year long, and it’s fun to get creative. Try to stick to one or two cuisine types for each pizza, like a mexican inspired, or california seafood style pizza when creating

I had some local baby fennel, and yellow cipollini onions on hand and decided to make a sauceless simple pair of pizzas.

2 baby fennel bulbs, sliced thinly
1 medium yellow cipollini onion, sliced thinly
Olive oil
2 prepared pizza dough packs from Trader Joes
1/2 cup Parmesan shavings
1 container of ovoline fresh mozzarella
1 granny smith apple
a few ounces of proscuitto
sea salt

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees and place a rack in the lower third of the oven. Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in a small sauté pan over medium low heat, add the onion and fennel and let them soften. In the meantime, stretch the dough and transfer to a baking sheet or pizza stone, cook each pizza on the same sheet or separately. Brush with olive oil and bake until dry to prevent the toppings from making the dough soggy. Remove from oven and place the onion/fennel, proscuitto, mozzarella and Parmesan on one pizza, and on the other substitute apple for the proscuitto. Bake until bubbly, tender and golden. Enjoy with a light and simple salad.