204: Squash and Mushroom Pizza

Or maybe it's some sort of squash and mushroom flatbread. The left slice/pizza has pecorino, the right does not. I preferred the sans-cheese, but it also had mas-mushroom, so the reason is a bit of a toss-up.

I roasted my squash, sliced, in an oven (at 350ish) until soft. I had been simply dressed with a little olive oil and salt.

The mushrooms were sliced and sauteed with garlic, lots of sage, lots of thyme and lots of olive oil. I'd probably up the herbs were I to do it again- or, hell, toss those herbs on the pizza. They were at a good level on the mushrooms by themselves, but I forgot to take into account the gestalt with squash and dough.

The combination was lovely, though the squash was (as it is) on the sweet side. Leftovers will have the important addition of sriracha to take the edge off.

190: Leftover Broccoli Cauliflower Pizza

A somewhat inadvertent take on this pizza I made the other week, but really was just an excuse to use leftovers. It just so happens to have broccoli and smoked mozz and pecorino, the latter two being leftovers from the first pizza.

I like red pies more than white, but wasn't in love with the pizza. I think I have an excess of cheese in my diet, and anything beyond minimal salads is being rejected by my body.

Still not happy with the crust, more flavor than I had been getting, but still undersalted and definitely stretched too thin. But! I didn't burn it this time, so at least that's something.

180: Broccoli and Potato Pizza

Some veggies, but mostly carbs and cheese on carbs.

Pizzas are one of those foods I can't really buy anymore (with the exception of like 2 places). Even though cheap and generally super convenient, they're just easy/fun and super customizable, why not just make them?

The tough part is the dough, which is only tough in the time sense, but just make a giant batch, freeze the rest, and then you don't have to deal with that aspect. 

I think I've enumerated these things before, in previous pizza posts. 

This one was different, in that I used the dough recipe listed here (subbing out beer for water, always a good idea). I'd up the salt a little next time. It was also a white pie, which I'm generally not a fan of. Good here, though.

Toppings were: 

• Potatoes - which were sliced and sauteed until tender and a little browned
• Broccoli - sliced at a steep angle, tossed in salt pepper and olive oil, then sauteed until tender
• Smoked mozz
• Pecorino
• Rosemary

I don't make pizzas enough to have the timing down on this oven. Mine were a bit doughier than I'm used to as well, so the bottoms burnt a bit while the tops were still a little pale. It was good though, especially when topped with a little sriracha. 

120: Cabbage and Onion Marmalade Pizza (& Thyme Scrambled Eggs)

This is definitely not a summer dish. A lot of standing around over an oven. Of course it happened to collide with one of the muggier weekends we've had in a while, so it's a good thing I don't mind sweating in a kitchen...and that it turned out well.

I followed this recipe from the NY Times for the marmalade. Tried my hand at chopping up the cabbage, the second half of the head (to be used in another recipe) was more finely chopped than this. But it cooks for so long, I feel like the flavors were on, even if the texture wasn't quite there.

Next time I'll probably keep it going until everything actually melts down, but for my purposes this is great.

The pizza crust has been in my freezer for a bit (it's the same batch as I used for leftover Indian pizza), and as I hadn't thawed out any bread for labor day breakfast, I decided to pair pizza with my eggs.

The Times recipe talks about putting anchovies and olives on the pizza. I wasn't totally sold, as I only had my paste and olives tend to be too assertive for me to enjoy. I'm trying to expand my pallate a bit so I did a little experiment.

The top half of the pizza got a thin layer of anchovy paste, directly on the crust. Then the whole thing was topped with the marmalade. The olives got put on the right half of the pizza. The end result:  quadrants featuring all flavor variations. Make sense? Part of me wants to draw a diagram but hopefully I worded that well enough.

My favorite quadrant was with the olives and anchovy, followed by anchovy no olives. Not that the others were bad, but both of those toppings added a nice savory salty contrast to the sweet marmalade.

The scrambled eggs were just thyme, with a little salt and pepper. Breakfast of champs.

98: Indian Leftovers Pizza

What do you do with Indian leftovers? Make pizza! May be one of my favorite things when it's done well (aka with Kamal). Still, pizza is pizza and fresh is inherently delicious, even if your repeated attempts at baignan bharta don't turn out as expected.

I still had some dough in the freezer from the last pizzas I made, stretched those out on some parchment topped with a little cornmeal as the oven preheated to 450. 

Topped the dough with some leftover baignan bharta and some paneer I picked up at Kalustyan's (got another goodie from there I'm looking forward to trying). I made two mini-pizzas, one with an egg per my tradition. Cooked on my pizza stone for about 15 minutes (looking for a soft yolk and some crust browning so timing is variable) and topped then a little cilantro when it came out of the oven.

This was my first time working with paneer. It definitely helped mellow out the spiciness, but didn't realize it wouldn't melt at all. Next time I'll mix most into the sauce.

I'm surprised this kind of thing doesn't happen more often- it's my favorite way of using leftover Indian or chili, or anything that's spreadable but not super runny. 

Helpful equation:  __________ + fresh dough + cheese + egg = delicious. Doesn't matter what it is.

Dish 24: Tomato Purslane Egg Poach & Summer Pizza

I don't think I can ever get sick of tomatoes. Last week's tomato and purslane soup was lovely, so I thought I'd try something similar for breakfast- poaching some eggs in the tomatoes. A lot of cultures do this- see eggs in purgatory or shakshuka- and it's just lovely.

I used another home-canned jar or tomatoes- added rosemary, a little thyme, a bay leaf and some cumin again. Chopped up my purslane a little more than last time and let it simmer a bit in a pan before adding my eggs. Put a cover on, occasionally basting the eggs with the liquid.

Ideally I wanted runny yolks. These were on a little too long- was multitasking with the summer pizza- see below- but it was still delicious.

Topped with a little gruyere. Nommy.

Notes for improvement: Don't overcook those eggs!

To go with my tomatoes: pizza! I don't tend to buy pizza unless it's something really special- like anything from SCRATCHbread or Two Boots. Beyond that it's more fun (and cheaper) to make your own dough and top it how you wish. Favorites: eggs (obviously) and/or leftover Indian.

I'll have a more detailed post once I work this method out, but for now I'll say the dough I use is from Macheesmo and summer is way too hot to cook pizza in an oven.

I had this idea to par-bake the crust in a dry pan after sprinkling a little cornmeal on either side, then topping and finishing off under the broiler in the oven. It worked relatively well, but needs tweaking.

I sliced some summer squash and garlic scapes, tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper, and fresh rosemary. Broiled the untopped dough for a little while (til it got some color), then flipped, topped, and put it back under the broiler until the veggies had cooked a bit. Thought a little cheese might be nice, so once it was almost there added that and put it back in for another minute.

The crust got some nice char but the center was undercooked and unpleasantly doughy. I don't like white pies- I think the cheese was a little too rich without something acidic to cut it.

Overall though the method will totally work for the hot months, just needs tweaking as I said.

Notes for improvement:
- Thinner crust or longer pan-cooking
- Rich pizzas + summer = itis
- Pre-cook the toppings, the broiler doesn't cook them through as much as I'd like