Pizza Epiphanies

Not too long ago I wrote about my love for a really good salad, but I have another great food love: pizza. In all forms: the kind you find at food carts at baseball game dripping in grease to the more creative versions found at restaurants with unambiguously psychedelic names.

I love inventing in the kitchen. I love looking at what I have, and what I don't have, and coming up with something new, like this pizza- an arugula and spinach pesto sauce with roasted cauliflower, potatoes and goat cheese- which just kind of dawned on me like a pizza epiphany one Friday evening. I raided the farmer's market for ingredients the next morning. I did not originally plan to use these gorgeous purple potatoes or the orange cauliflower but my philosophy for food (and clothes, and art... and life) leans towards "why choose something boring when you can choose something colorful?"

I'm sure it would be just as delicious with russet potatoes and white cauliflower,
but not nearly as pretty (hah).

I'm not really one to toot my own horn (or use a lot of cheesy idioms) but this pizza is amazing. I shared it with my roommates and a couple of friends and we're still talking about that awesome pizza even though I made it several weeks ago. 

These directions are wordy and sound kind of time consuming (sorry!), but it's really not that bad. The whole process probably took a little under an hour to complete. 

What you need: 

1/4 cup Sunflower Seeds

1 cup Arugula

1 cup Spinach 

2-3 cloves Garlic

1 cup Olive Oil 

1 t cumin 

1/2 t curry

1/2 t cayenne

1/2 t garlic powder 

1 head Cauliflower

2 medium-sized potatoes 

1 packet Fleischmann's pizza crust yeast 

1 cup white flour

3/4 cup- 1 cup wheat flour 

Sugar 

Salt

Pepper

The "Pesto" Sauce: 

1/4 cup sunflower seeds

2 cups of arugula/spinach mix (the stems of arugula are slightly bitter, when I make pesto with them I always pull off the leaves and discard the stems) 

3 cloves garlic 

approx. 1/2 cup olive oil 

Blend in food processor. 

To be honest, these are all approximations. I'm abysmal at measuring while I'm cooking-- I eyeball most things and taste test frequently. You want the sauce to be slightly more sauce-like than pesto-like. If it's too thick (on the pesto end of the spectrum), add more olive oil. 

The Cauliflower: 

1 t cumin

1/2 t curry

1/2 t cayenne 

1/2 t garlic powder 

mix! 

Chop up cauliflower and spread florets on a baking sheet. Drizzle a cooking oil of your choice (I used olive oil) over the florets, then evenly sprinkle spice mixture. Bake at 425 for about 15 minutes or until florets are about halfway cooked.

The Potatoes: 

Slice thinly. 

Drizzle with olive oil. 

Add salt and pepper.

Bake at 425 for 10ish minutes. 

The Crust/The Whole Pie:

I bought this brand of yeast (make sure you buy the kind that says Pizza Crust Yeast!) and followed the instructions on the packaging (also found here), though I subbed the 1 3/4 cup white all purpose flower for 1 cup white flower and 3/4 cup wheat flower and I added more wheat flour while kneading the dough. I spread the dough out on a pizza stone greased with a tad bit of oil and added the sauce, cauliflower, potatoes, and added goat cheese then threw it in the oven. It took about to 17 minutes for pizza to cook.

Ever since this evening, I've been brainstorming more wacky/awesome pizza combos and scribbling my ideas down in a notebook. I'm super excited to try them out. If they're good (cross your fingers!), I'll be sharing them on here soon.

-Madelyn