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Today's dish is pizza. I spotted a roasted vegetable frozen pizza while strolling the aisles at Trader Joe's the other day and decided that it would be better if I made it myself. So today's goal was to find bright and fresh ingredients that would look and taste good on top of a pizza. After browsing the whole market it became evident that it's really squash season. Each stand overflowed with zucchini, yellow squash, even an avocado squash which I had never heard of before, but after some research discovered that the roundish green vegetable has a slightly richer flavor than regular squash. I made a mental note to try that later and bought some zucchini and yellow squash instead. The color of the yellow squash was so vibrant, I knew it would stand out on top of the pizza.
After grabbing some early season Jersey tomatoes I headed to the south side of the square to Whole Foods to buy some supplemental ingredients. I unfortunately didn't have enough time today to make the dough for the pizza myself, but Whole Foods makes a great alternative. They make it fresh every day in a few different varieties. You can find it in the refrigerated section with the sandwiches. I also picked up some locally made mozzarella. I would have liked to have bought cheese at the farmers market, but I wasn't too impressed with the selection they had today. There were only a couple of cheese vendors, and nothing but goat cheese seemed appropriate for a pizza. I would have bought that, but the vegetables seemed so fresh that I didn't want to overpower their flavor with the pungency of the goat cheese.
So today I purchased:
Farmers Market
1 yellow squash
1 zucchini
2 Jersey tomatoes
1 bunch of thyme
1 shallot
1 yellow onion
Garlic bulb
Whole Foods
1 pre-made pizza dough
1 ball of mozzarella cheese
Ingredients I had at home
white wine
olive oil
salt and pepper
sugar
Parmesan
Recipe: Roasted Tomato and Squash Pizza
Slice the squash into rounds. Chop the tomatoes into quarter size pieces. Mince two cloves of garlic and the onion. In medium size skillet saute the onion and garlic on medium high heat for a minute. Add the tomatoes, squash and zucchini. Saute on medium high until the zucchini starts to slightly brown and get soft. Add salt and pepper to taste and a teaspoon of thyme. I had actually bought the thyme at the Grand Army Plaza farmers market earlier in the week and had left it out in a bowl. When I went to use it today it was already dried. This was fine. It just meant that I used a little less. As the tomatoes started to cook down I added a splash of white wine and a teaspoon of sugar. Once the tomatoes were losing their shape, but before the squash fell apart I turned off the heat. It should look like this.
While I was sauteing the vegetables I preheated the oven to 450 degrees. I would prefer to use a pizza stone, but if you don't have one, a sheet pan will do. Spray the pan with olive oil so it won't stick. Roll out the pizza dough to desired thickness. Prick the dough with a fork so it doesn't bubble up during baking. I brushed some olive oil over the dough before adding the toppings.
You can put either the cheese or the vegetables on first, but I put the cheese as the under-layer. I sliced the mozzarella to about 1/4 inch and laid it on the pizza. Then I scooped the vegetables on top of the cheese and finished with some Parmesan I had in the fridge. Bake for 10 minutes until the crust is crispy but
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