Beet pizza with arugula pesto and Gorgonzola cheese

For some reason, I've been seriously craving pizza lately. I made a classic tomato and mozzarella version last week, and wanted to experiment with something more interesting next. I had the idea to turn a classic beet salad into a pizza and decided to use Gorgonzola instead of the more common goat cheese (I love me some moldy cheese). I know I wanted to incorporate arugula, but didn't really just want to pile it up on top of the pizza. I mean, is there any good way to eat pizza with a huge pile of leaves on top without having them all fall off? I was also looking for a way to add moisture to the pizza and decided to kill two birds with one stone by making an arugula pesto to use as pizza sauce. I enjoyed the way the final pizza came out - the different components definitely worked well together to make a tasty pie. My pizza craving isn't gone though, and I've got more pizza dough in the freezer...so what toppings should I play with next??

Beet pizza with arugula pesto and Gorgonzola cheese

Makes a 16-inch pizza

Some tips: I like to form the pizza on a piece of parchment paper placed on the pizza peel. That way, the pizza and parchment slide easily into the oven. Also, if you don’t have a pizza stone, you can bake the pizza on a large baking pan.

This recipe makes more pesto than you'll need for the pizza. You can eat the leftovers with pasta or as a sandwich spread, and you can freeze it if you want to store it for a while.

1 lb. pizza dough (I used whole wheat), at room temperature
3 medium beets (about 20 oz.), scrubbed and stems trimmed to 1 inch
2 cups arugula leaves (packed)
⅓ cup walnuts
⅓ cup coarsely shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
½ cup Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled (you can also use any other type of blue cheese, or use goat cheese if you prefer)
4 tsp balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 350 deg F. Put beets in a baking dish with enough water to cover the bottom of the dish to a depth of 1/8 inch and sprinkle with salt. Cover tightly with foil and bake the beets in the preheated oven until they can be easily pierced with a sharp knife, about 1 hour (this could take more or less time, depending on the size of the beets). Remove beets from the oven, uncover the pan, and cool the beets. Cut off their tops and roots and rub off the skins. Cut beets into ¼-inch slices.

If you have a pizza stone, place it on the bottom rack of the oven. Increase oven temperature to 500 deg F (or as high as your oven can go).

While beets are baking, combine arugula, walnuts, and cheese in the bowl of a food processor and process until coarsely chopped. Add olive oil and process until smooth. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

When oven is heated to 500 deg F, stretch dough out to a 16-inch round on a pizza peel. Spread arugula pesto on dough and top with beet slices. Sprinkle cheese crumbles over the beets. Slide pizza onto the preheated stone and bake until crust is crisp, about 8-10 min. Remove pizza from oven and drizzle balsamic vinegar over the pizza. Let cool for a couple minutes, and serve.

Green garlic pesto

 
The local farmers' market opened up for the summer season last weekend. I'm so happy the summer markets have started - my trip to the farmers' market is a big part of my Saturday morning routine and I look forward to it all week (as you have probably noticed if you come here often, I really, really like vegetables). At the last market, I picked up some green garlic, which I had not tried before. Green garlic is young fresh garlic that has not yet developed thick, papery skins around the cloves. The flavor is much milder than mature garlic, and you can eat the stalks and leaves as well as the cloves. I decided to make a pesto with my bunch of green garlic, using hazelnuts instead of the traditional pine nuts, and pecorino romano instead of parmesan. It came out really nice - flavorful and subtly garlicky but not enough to be hazardous to your breath. We ate it tossed with some asparagus and white beans, but it would also be lovely tossed with pasta, spread on hearty bread, or as a dip for veggies or crackers.

Green garlic pesto

1/2 pound green garlic, roots removed
3/4 cup finely grated pecorino romano cheese
1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts
3/4 cup olive oil

Roughly chop cloves, stalks, and leaves from green garlic. Blend all ingredients together in a food processor until mixture forms a paste. Water or additional olive oil can be added if a thinner consistency is desired. Add salt to taste.

Pasta with cauliflower and walnut pesto

This post is the first of my two entries for this week's Fall Fest, which features brassicas. Brassicas are a category of vegetable that includes cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts, kale, and cabbage, to name a few. Even for a vegetable lover such as myself, it's not exactly the most exciting group...I'll admit that it took me a while to get inspired for this one. But after flipping through several cookbooks, I found this cauliflower pasta recipe, which is a keeper, as well as a few other brassica recipes that I'm looking forward to trying.

The pesto in this dish is made with cilantro, parsley, garlic, and walnuts. It's got a really interesting flavor, much more subtle than I expected. I thought it was a great match for the cauliflower and other vegetables. The recipe calls for fresh bell peppers, but they're no longer in season here, so I had to improvise. I'm determined to continue eating as much local produce as possible through the colder months, so I substituted some roasted red peppers (frozen from the summer) and a carrot. We also stirred in some chickpeas for added protein, but I forgot to add them before Andrew took pictures. I really liked the final dish with these additions - it's a satisfying single-bowl meal, and is good served warm or cold.

Cilantro pesto

It's only within the last year or so that I've experimented with pesto beyond the classic basil/pine nut/parmesan combination. This stellar cilantro pesto is by far the best one I've come across (although obviously not for the cilantro-haters out there). The pesto gets an Asian twist with ingredients like soy sauce and sesame oil, which makes for a really interesting and tasty sauce. I like to eat it with soba noodles and tofu, but I bet it would be great on chicken as well. It's definitely a quick and easy way to spice up a meal.

Notes on the recipe: I don't bother removing the cilantro leaves from the stems. It's all going in the food processor anyway, so why bother? Also, I use peanuts instead of pine nuts, and I think cashews would work as well. 

Cilantro pesto
Adapted from Gourmet Today
Serves 4

1/4 cup mild olive or vegetable oil
2 cups packed fresh cilantro leaves
2 tbs pine nuts
1 tbs fresh lime juice
2 tsp soy sauce (GT suggests using fish sauce instead for deeper flavor)
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth. Serve with tofu, chicken, rice, or noodles. Pesto freezes well.

Pesto and fresh tomato pizza

I'm the kind of crazy person who thinks it is completely acceptable to heat the oven to 500 degrees on a hot summer day. It's totally worth it for homemade pizza...right? However, if you are less inclined to spend time in a sweltering kitchen, this could also be done on the grill - I've heard that grilled pizza is fantastic.

We made the pizza dough using Peter Reinhart's recipe from The Bread Baker's Apprentice. This dough is really tasty, plus the recipe makes enough for 6 pizzas (9 to 12 inch, thin crust), and you can freeze the dough to use later. This makes it easy to have homemade pizzas a lot more often.

About the pesto - homemade is definitely much tastier than store bought. Right now is a great time to make some, with all the (cheap) fresh basil that is available. We make ours in big batches and then freeze it in ice cube trays. That way we can take out a couple cubes whenever we want it.