When does a pizza stop being a pizza?

yep, that's lettuce on there.

As you are well aware, I love pizza. As I was eating my pizza today I wondered at what point something stops being pizza and it becomes something else. I don't know. I think that as long as it is on a crust I will consider it pizza, though I admit that the one I had today was pretty far removed from traditional pepperoni pizza.

Today I decided that an excellent pizza topping would be sweet potatoes. Because, really, sweet potatoes are delicious and why wouldn't they be delicious on a crust? So I chopped up a couple small ones and roasted them on the stove till they were nice and soft and then threw them on a crust with some cheese. So good. Granted, my crust had been in the freezer a little too long so it ended up being a very thin crust pizza, but that's ok too. I also thought that it would be nice to have something with the sweet potatoes, but I didn't have a lot of other things, so I threw on some romaine lettuce. I figure, people cooks lots of other kinds of leafy greens, why not lettuce? But, I was a little bit wary, so I only put it on part of the pizza.

It turned out pretty good. The lettuce gives it just a little different texture, but it doesn't really change the flavor a lot. I think next time I'll put lettuce on the whole thing. And the sweet potatoes were just as delicious as I figured they would be. They are such a versatile root. I am grateful for them.

Pizza

I feel like more and more my posts are centering around the theme of pizza. Apparently I can't get enough of it. Actually it makes me worry a little bit that I'm going to tire of it someday like I have of pasta and rice. However, until the most unfortunate occurs I am eating pizza like there is no tomorrow. I also am lucky (or possibly unlucky) to have about a million pizza places (or 4) within two blocks of my house.Today I sampled my third of these delightful food establishments. And it has been my favorite. I will admit that in someways my judging is a little unfair because I always seem to be getting slices of pizza at times when there isn't a chance that they are fresh (you like 2 or 3 in the afternoon). But Michael's Pizza held up well to the fact that I had to nuke it when I got home. I've eaten at Andrea's Pizza twice and while the second time the pizza seemed fresher the crust was still pretty hard. Stella's Pizza is great, and I like it, but I never was as big a fan of the thin, crispy crust as I am of not thin, crispy crusts. Of course none of these even compares to Ernesto's Pizza in the North End, but let's face it, the North End is a bit of trek. I also love how all these places are named after people. It seems somehow cooler than pizza named after kinds of buildings, or games or something.

Peanut Curry Pizza!

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I think that everything tastes better when it's on a crust. I love my pizza. I think my favorite thing though is that when I order pizza I always get plain old pepperoni, but when I cook pizza I hardly ever put meat on at all. On Sunday I made a delicious Thai peanut curry that one of my former roommates taught me how to make. It's pretty delicious. She normally serves it over rice, but I'm still struggling with rice since the winter and so I've been eating it over rice noodles (because apparently my stomach thinks those are different enough). I ended up with lots of leftovers and so... peanut curry pizza! Today's pizza features:

•  my favorite crust--I usually pre-bake it with a little olive oil and garlic
• the peanut curry sauce--spread pretty thin
• some leftover cooked rice stick noodles
• chopped up steamed potatoes--I've decided that I like them best steamed (they seem to always be cooked enough that way)
• a little bit more sauce on top
• and some cheese to hold it all together--I just used cheddar because that's what I have.

I was a little worried about the cheese. I know it holds it all together well, but really, cheese? with curry? But I was pleasantly surprised. It worked great. Held it all together and you couldn't really taste it at all. Also, you could totally use any vegetables you normally have with curry and I think it'd be great. I mean, we already know that zucchini and broccoli are both good on crusts... Overall, I'm a fan of this pizza. Next time though, I might broil it for a minute just to brown up the potatoes a touch, they look a little anemic...

Broccoli Pizza!

You probably remember my zucchini pizza mishap from Monday. And you probably remember that I had planned on making broccoli pizza. So today that's what I did. And I learned from my mistakes:
1. I didn't use red sauce
2. I seasoned my broccoli
3.I pre-steamed my broccoli so it was basically already cooked when I put it on the crust (maybe next time I'll roast it, I bet that'd be pretty tasty)
 And the result was about a hundred times better. I think that zucchini and yellow squash pizza (when properly made) is still my favorite, but this was pretty delicious too. And I will definitely be making it again. Maybe even with the other bit of crust I have in the freezer.

pizza, pizza

Today I made more zucchini pizza. I wish that I could say that this one was as delicious as the others that I have made this year, but I confess it was not. 'Twas my own fault though. I've had a container of pizza sauce in the freezer for a while and I decided to pull it out two or three days ago and I had plans to make a broccoli pizza with it. So that was my plan for today. I've found that things go bad a lot faster here in the summer, so I've been a little nervous that my sauce would go bad before I got to it. So today I pull it out and get out the broccoli and as I'm rooting around trying to find the cheese I find 2/3 of a zucchini left over from making bread yesterday. So I decided that I should make pizza out of it. Of course the red sauces doesn't really go with the zucchini pizza, but for whatever reason I decided that both leftovers just had to be used today. When I stirred up the sauce it was super watery (obviously a by product of having been frozen). And there was at least twice as much as I needed. Nevertheless. I spread all of it on my crust and hoped for the best.

Yeah, it stuck to the pan something fierce, and the crust sogged out almost instantly. I think that in the future we'll quit trying to make dumb decisions like that. It tasted ok, very much like breadsticks with slices of zucchini on top. I'll get around to making my broccoli pizza another time. And I probably won't use tomato sauce, which somehow I think will be ok.

Potato Pizza

This seems like forever ago that I was on my pizza kick, but for a while I'm pretty sure I made pizza (usually with zuccini and squash on it) at least once a week and maybe more like twice. I'm not sure what happened. I guess I got busy (which I definitely did, if I look at my life in January and my life now they are completely different). But back when I ate pizza all the time I saw this recipe for potato pizza and thought it sounded pretty tasty. Though when I made it I admit that I made some changes because I had neither shallots nor gruyere (though if I did that would've been pretty fantastic). Sadly, it's a little hard to remember, but I'm pretty sure I used cheddar cheese. And I also learned that you definitely need to make sure the potatoes are cooked all the way through before you put them on the crust because they won't finish cooking in the oven. But other than that, the pizza turned out pretty fantastically. Writing this makes me want to make pizza again soon, maybe I'll get ingredients for one next time I do a shop.

Zucchini Pizza

Normally I'm a pepperoni pizza person. Just plain old pepperoni (or occasionally Hawaiian), but this zucchini pizza is fantastic! One of my old roommates used to make it occasionally and it made the apartment smell so good. So today I tried it. And I tried a new crust recipe, which at least so far has passed muster. Admittedly, I didn't use goat's cheese, but that was more because it was too expensive to actually buy. But next time, I think I'll spend the extra money.

Pizza Margherita

Delicioso! A nice pizza with basil and mozarella, baked to a light toasted state, quite delicious. Today's adventure was a pizza one. I tried to flip the pizza crust above my head; I haven't quite got the hang of it yet though. It sort of works but gets too thin in the middle and not thin enough near the edges. I made it work though. The sliced mozarella was really nice, and the fresh basil gave the perfect flavour. It was a good meal. I look forward to making it again, thoughI think next time I would cook it a little less and maybe use a tad more cheese. You can never have enough cheese.