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Strawberry Arugula Pizza

Two things you would probably never think to put together: strawberries and pizza. It sounds a bit strange, but trust me, it works!

Actually, there are a lot of fruit and pizza combinations that go well together. Fig and prosciutto, for instance. But this strawberry arugula pizza is my new favorite!

I start all my pizzas by pre-baking the pizza crust. Since I don’t own a pizza oven (if you do, can we be best friends and make pizza all the time?) I find that I get a crispier crust that way.

For this pizza, instead of sauce, I liberally coated the par-baked crust with a balsamic glaze. You can make your own balsamic glaze by simply bringing balsamic vinegar to a simmer and reducing by half or more until it’s nice and thick.

Or you can do what I did and buy it at the store. You don’t always have to be a hero and make everything from scratch.

Next comes the mozzarella. Most of the time I like to use the fresh balls of mozzarella versus the preshredded variety, but thats a personal preference. You do you, boo.

On top of the pieces of mozz, I scattered the sliced strawberries.

The last thing I added before putting this bad boy back in the oven was goat cheese. I felt like this pizza needed just a little something to balance out the acidity from the balsamic and the sweetness of the strawberries. This tangy and salty goat cheese did the trick!

Once the pizza came out of the oven I topped it with a generous helping of arugula that had been tossed in balsamic and olive oil. Which pretty much turns this pizza into a salad as far as I’m concerned. 

I can think of no better way to eat a salad than on a crispy and pizza crust.

But in all seriousness, this was one of my favorite pizzas we’ve made in a long time. The whole thing just worked. It was the perfect Summer pizza because it was just so light and fresh. It didn’t feel as heavy as some super cheesy meat-covered pizza. 

I guess that’s why the two of us devoured this whole thing. Like I said its pretty much a salad so we have nothing to feel guilty about. Right?

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Frittata Pizza

Do you love pizza? But are you restricted by your low-carb diet? I have the solution for you!!

I hope you read that in the most “info-mercial voice you could think of. 

But seriously….I do have the solution for you! 

In an effort to try to get my eating back on track after the holidays, I have been trying to cut back on some of the carbs in my diet. Other than the 4 cookies I just scarffed down, it’s been going pretty well. That’s not to say I haven’t had cravings for some of my favorite foods. I have definitely missed my peanut butter toast in the mornings. But I have also found some good alternatives, like this frittata pizza! 

When my husband was out of town last week I was looking for something easy to cook for just myself with what I had available. Since we always have eggs, a frittata seemed like a good, healthy option. But pizza is actually what I had a hankering for. So I combined the two!

I started by blistering a handful of cherry tomatoes in the pan. Since I wasn’t going to use any sauce, these tomatoes gave me the same tomato flavor that I would expect on a pizza. 

Then I poured in a mixture of eggs, egg whites, oregano, basil, Parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper and let the eggs start to solidify. Once a layer of cooked egg had formed on the bottom and around the edges, I used a spatula to pull in the sides so that the uncooked egg could spill over into the gap. 

Once most of the egg had cooked, I sprinkled on some mozzarella cheese and then placed some pepperonis on top. Then I placed the entire frittata under the broiler so the cheese could melt and the rest of the egg could cook. 

Once it was done, I topped it with some fresh basil, crushed red pepper, and some more Parmesan. I’m trying to reduce the carbs, not the cheese!

 

After one bite, this totally hit the spot. It definitely satisfied any craving I had for pizza! While you can’t totally replace the crunchy traditional pizza crust, somehow the egg “crust” was perfectly enjoyable. I think it’s the Parmesan mixed in with the eggs that makes the whole thing just taste like melted cheese. I mean, how could you not love it?

I would make this frittata pizza again in a heart beat! Not only is it a tad healthier (depending on which macro-nutrient you are trying to avoid), from start to finish, the whole thing took about 15 minutes or less. It was the perfect meal to for just one person. If we are being honest, it’s probably plenty of food for two. But of course I ate the whole thing myself.

It was just that good!  

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Quick and Easy Homemade Pizza Dough

Homemade-Pizza-Dough2

The #1 reason people give me for not wanting to make their own pizza dough is that it takes too much time. They aren’t wrong, it can take all day to make pizza dough if you are doing it the old fashioned way. But through my lack of patience and procrastination I have managed find a way to cut the time down to about an hour. AND most of that time is passive, read a magazine, open a bottle of wine, wait for the dough to rise kind of time. 

But even the active time isn’t all that difficult. It’s like making any other dough. The main difference with pizza dough compared to, say, cookie dough is the yeast which needs to bloom, or get all puffy. It takes about 10 minutes for the yeast to fully ‘bloom’, so I just use that time to measure out all the ingredients so that once the yeast is ready I can just breeze right on through the rest of the process. 

The rest of the dough recipe is pretty simple. Flour, salt, and a bit of olive oil. While I always start with the exact recipe, every once and a while I have to add a bit more flour or oil depending on whether the dough is a bit sticky or dry. I know that the dough is perfect when it no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl and it forms one single ball. It may still be slightly tacky to the touch, but shouldn’t stick to your fingers, if that makes sense. 

Pizza Dough-4

Once the dough is just right, it’s time to knead. I let the stand mixer do this step for me since I am lazy, and it takes about half as long. The dough only needs to about 5 to 10 minutes in the mixer or about 10 to 15 if you want to knead it by hand. 

Now here is where the passive part comes in. I transfer the dough into a oiled bowl and cover it with plastic wrap so that the dough can proof. In the dead of Winter it could take hours in a cool kitchen to get the dough to double in size. Even in the Summer, it’s not a quick process. To speed things up for me, I heat up my oven to the lowest possible temperature. Once it comes up to temp, I turn the oven off. I don’t want to bake the dough, I just want it to have a warm and cozy place to hang out for a while. 

Putting the dough in the oven shaves hours off. This dough doubled in size in about 40 minutes. That means that this pizza dough only took about 1 hour to make start to finish. 

Of course  we make pizza dough for a reason – to be topped with gooey cheese and salty meats. But before I top the crust with anything, I like to brush it with with olive oil first. This keeps the top of the crust from drying out too much. The next step is par-baking the crust. Since I don’t own a pizza oven (#lifegoals) and my oven isn’t capable of getting hot enough to properly bake a pizza,  I par-bake it until it gets all bubbly and a bit crispy on the bottom. 

From here, there are unlimited ways you can dress up your pizza. You can top it with the classic tomato sauce, cheese, and pepperoni. Or you can get a little crazy and top it with some ricotta, kale, and prosciutto. Baking the toppings on the crust just takes minutes, until the cheese gets melted and bubbly. Sometimes I turn on the broiler just to get a extra char on the top of the pizza. 

Now you can make your very own pizza from scratch that will rival just about any pizza that will be delivered to your house. We actually made this dough into a breakfast pizza topped with sausage, kale, and an egg. It was delicious! I highly recommend pizza for breakfast!

Breakfast-Pizza-2

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Pulled Pork Pizza

Pulled-Pork-PizzaI have only lived in the (true) South (Texas doesn’t really count) for about a year and a half. But its fair to say I have fully embraced the cuisine here, despite it’s tendency to be fried, covered in cheese, full of butter, and generally not-so-healthy. One of the things I love most here is the barbeque (I am my father’s daughter). In North Carolina, it’s all about pulled pork that has been slow cooked in a smoker and requires little to no accoutrements. Which is probably why I love to add pulled pork to just about anything. Like pizza!

My husband and I have actually been wanting to make a pulled pork pizza for some time, but hadn’t quite settled on the right recipe until recently. For some reason, I am a firm believer in adding veggies to pizza (or anything, really), but what veggies would you put on this pizza? Then my husband threw out the idea of putting cole slaw on top. And it was settled! We had our pulled pork pizza recipe!

I started with the pizza dough. I think the most important ingredient for bubbly, chewy, but a bit crispy pizza dough is the yeast. I start with a cup of warm water, stir in honey (or sugar), then sprinkle on the yeast. The yeast will start to foam, which is how you know it is good yeast. If there is no foam, your yeast is old and your dough won’t rise (keep it in the freezer to keep it fresh).

I used my basic pizza dough recipe, however I substituted corn meal in for the whole wheat flour to make it a bit more like corn bread. To me, that seems a bit more Southern, and it worked perfectly..

I let the dough rise until it doubled in size, then punched it down and let it rise once more. That second rise is not necessary. But I find that the dough is a bit more light and airy if it rises twice. Sometimes you just don’t have that kind of time, so one rise will do.

For this pizza, we decided to use our cast iron skillet instead of a pizza stone. The cast iron is great for pizzas because it gets really hot and helps to crisp up the bottom of the pizza. Plus, it seemed appropriate for the theme of the pizza.

I like to par bake my crust, so I pressed the dough into the skillet and baked it for about 5 minutes until it started to bubble and puff up. Then I covered the dough in our favorite “Carolina-Style” barbeque sauce, Carolina Gold from Trade Joes. You could use any barbeque sauce, but I would recommend a vinegar or mustard based one to go with the pork.

Pulled-Pork-Pizza13Then we just topped it off with the pork and cheese and let it bake until the cheese was melted and started to bubble.

You could of course stop here. But we took the pizza a step further and added “veggies” in the form of cole slaw.

Pulled-Pork-Pizza2For the cole slaw, I just used a bag mix from the grocery store. But if you have a great cole slaw recipe, by all means, use it. One recommendation I would make is to use less dressing than normal. You don’t want your cole slaw to be overly wet. Also, if you are serving more people or you think you may have left overs, put the cole slaw on once you have sliced and served the pizza. It may leave your slices a bit soggy.

Pulled-Pork-Pizza1But boy oh boy was this pizza wonderful! The crust was light and fluffy, the pork was smokey and tangy thanks to the sauce, and the cole slaw was creamy and crisp! It was like full meal in one

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Grilled Peach and Prosciutto Pizza

Grilled-Peach-Pizza1There are a few things to me that are quintessential to summer. 2 of them are grilling out and peaches.

To kick off my “summer vacation” (the week off I had between jobs), my husband combined those two things with our favorite Friday meal, pizza, to create the grilled peach and prosciutto pizza.

Grilled-Peach-Pizza2I have to admit, we had never grilled pizza before. So what follows are some guidelines that we should have followed, not exactly what we did do.

We started with some gorgeous and juicy peaches from the previous weekends farmers market haul, prosciutto, mozzarella, basil, and ricotta. I would also highly recommend mixing in some garlic into the ricotta and drizzling balsamic on top. While the pizza was delicious, those two things would have added some more depth of flavor.

Grilled-Peach-Pizza3The first thing we did was grilled off the pizza dough. We placed the dough right on the grill over in direct heat. What we should have done was heat up the grill with the cover down until the thermometer read 400 degrees. While the grill is heating up, you can prep the dough and all the other ingredients, then once its hot toss the dough on there and cook on each side for a few minutes.

Once the dough was a bit crispy and more crust like, I removed them from the grill and started layering on the ingredients, starting with the ricotta, the prosciutto, peaches, cheese, and then the basil.

Grilled-Peach-Pizza6We put the pizzas back on the grill over indirect heat and closed the top to let them cook for another couple minutes until the cheese got nice and bubbly.

Grilled-Peach-Pizza8Grilling pizza really isn’t all too different from cooking them in the oven. I really enjoyed the extra flavor that we got from the direct fire. There is something about that charred flavor from the grilling and the sweetness from the peaches that make this the perfect summer meal.

Do you grill pizzas? What are some of your favorite flavors?

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Hawaiian Pizza

BBC Hawaiian Pizza3Until very recently, I would avoid Hawaiian pizza like the plague. I never understood it’s appeal. 1) Fruit on pizza? Gross. 2) How does the combination of Canadian bacon and canned pineapple equal Hawaiian? However, my husband and I have gotten more adventurous in our pizza making (and eating), so I thought I would give the “traditional” Hawaiian pizza a makeover. And frankly try to make it more Hawaiian.

BBC Hawaiian Pizza1To achieve a good pizza, you need to start with a good foundation. After a couple years, I think I have finally found my perfect pizza dough recipe and technique (I will a full pizza dough post in the near future). I always make whole wheat pizza dough to try to be a bit healthier, but you can always substitute all purpose flour if you so desire.

BBC Hawaiian Pizza2But if making pizza dough isn’t your thing, you can purchase pizza dough from your grocery store or even your local pizzeria.

Once the pizza dough has risen, rolled out, and pre-baked, it’s time to add on the toppings. For our Hawaiian pizza I used Teriykai sauce,  slow cooked pork using the Skinny Taste’s Kalua Pig recipe, fresh pineapple, and a little red onion and cilantro.

BBC Hawaiian Pizza5Because I pre-bake the crust to get the bottom crispy, once the toppings are on, the pizza doesn’t take long to cook. For the last 2 minutes of baking, I turn the broiler on to get the cheese nice and bubbly and onions and pineapple a bit caramelized.

BBC Hawaiian Pizza4My husband and I were so incredibly pleased with this pizza and we will definitely make it again. I will add more pineapple to it next time. It really helps balance out the salty pork, and guess what. Fruit on pizza isn’t that gross after all.

 

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