Thursday, August 29, 2013

Pizza Part 2: Top It Off



Pizza toppings can be customized to please even the pickiest, most skeptical pizza-inhaler. Some people consider pizza most beautiful with nothing but gooey cheese. Some people love sweet-sour pineapple; others thin it goes against everything pizza stands for. Some strange ones see pizza, with all its carb-y, cheesy goodness, as a vehicle for meat, though in this vegetarian household, we definitely prefer fruits and veggies.

So consider the red onion/mozarella/pineapple combination we chose a suggestion, not a doctrine. You can add feta instead of mozzarella, olives for onions, any veggie for pineapple. But this combination is what we chose, and it was pretty divine. Homemade pizza is a treat, and this it the pizza that all homemade pizzas strive to be. Assuming that all pizzas strive to have a garlicky crust, roasted red pepper tomato sauce, fresh pineapple, crisp red onions, and silky fresh mozzarella. If I were pizza...but I digress.





 We couldn't help taking a lot of pictures...but don't worry, we only posted a few. 


 Pizza Toppings Galore
makes toppings for one 16 inch pizza (for us, this means serves 4 as a meal)

 -Pizza Dough and Sauce

-2 cups diced fresh pineapple*

-1 medium red onion, cut into thin slivers

-1/4 cup shredded fresh mozzarella

-sliced fresh mozzarella to cover the veggies (we didn't measure...)

-1 tsp olive oil

-spices of choice (think oregano, chili flakes etc.)

-salt and pepper to taste

-fresh basil

Mix together the pineapple, onions, olive oil, spices, salt, and pepper. Then sprinkle the shredded cheese on the pizza sauce. Add the veggie/spice mixture on top of this. Top with the sliced cheese, spaced out so that when melted, there will be enough cheesy goodness to go around (I know, what an exact measurement: degree of cheesy goodness.)

Bake at 400 degrees F for 15-20 minutes until the thin crust is fantastically crisp and the cheese is browned. Then top with fresh basil and enjoy, but try not to burn the roof of your mouth as you wolf down this incredible pizza.

*You can use canned pineapple, but we find it a bit saccharine. Fresh pineapple, when ripe, is just bitter/sour enough to counter its floral sweetness. And that is the secret to divine pineapple pizza. Fresh, not canned. But if you use canned, which is certainly cheaper and more convenient, get it packed in juice, not syrup, and add a bit of lemon juice to keep it sour.

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