Saturday, January 2, 2010

Pizza: Flexible, Forgiving, and Fantastic

Admittedly, I consider myself a gourmand and yet readily acknowledge that pizza is one of my favorite foods. While everyone has their favorite local or chain pizza place, I prefer homemade pizza. It does take time to prepare the dough, but beyond that it requires little preparation and the final product is.


Tonight we were making pizza for birthday party crowd, but I ran out of sauce (both tomato and pesto). I turned to the fridge for options. Here was the delicious, extemporaneous result.


The Method
Three of today's purchases came immediately to mind (with their intended dishes for later in the week shown):

  • prosciutto (for haluski)
  • raw goat's milk blue cheese from Sweet Grass Dairy (for rigatoni with bacon, brussel sprouts and blue cheese)
  • grapes (for snacking)
  1. Preheat the oven to 475.
  2. Brush the pizza dough (stretched to size; here 6" diameter) with olive oil.
  3. Layer sliced grapes, followed by slices of prosciutto and crumbled blue cheese.
  4. Add a dusting of mozzarella.
  5. Bake 10-12 minutes. (Keep an eye on this; it browns very quickly toward the end.)





The Results
Salty, sweet, savory...with a crispy crust. This is a decadent treat - and a tasty alternative to more standard sauce, meat, veggie combinations. (Sorry for not including a picture of the cooked pizza; we ate it too quickly!) It could include spinach or other greens. Also, I kept the toppings to a minimum, which allowed the crust to play a starring role. After all, it was the most involved part of the dish - and worth the prandial attention. This will make many repeat appearances at our table.

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Kudya Bwino Bwino (Eating Well) © 2009