What We Ate: Kale Pesto Pizza

A week ago we made some kale pesto.

1 bunch of kale
1/3 cup of toasted walnuts
1/2 cup Parmesan
1/2 cup of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

We originally made some for pasta and sauteed mushrooms, but then we had extra.  So I came up with an idea for pizza.

And it was amazing.

Ingredients:
1 large recipe of pizza dough
1 lb ground sausage, cooked
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
4 oz goat cheese, crumbled
4 purple potatoes, thinly sliced
olive oil
kale pesto, see above

First you make your dough.  Which by the way we had to use beer dough since we ran out of yeast and Jeff forgot to tell me, it is sub par to real yeast dough, but is okay.  Spread the dough onto a pan, we generally use a jelly roll pan and it takes up the entire sheet. 

Set your oven on a really high temp, like 475 degrees.  

Then you spread olive oil and pesto on the dough.  Then you take some mandolin sliced purple potatoes and place them on top of the pesto and more olive oil. 

Add some already cooked Italian sausage on the pizza.  We used ground, but you can use sausage still in the casing. 

The best part comes next, CHEESE! I used peppered goat cheese and shredded Parmesan.  Then top it off with more olive oil.  

Bake for about 15 minutes or until the potatoes are done, just make sure to not do it too long and have a burnt crust.

Enjoy.

It is amazing, you should really try it.

Oh, and I meant to add caramelized red onions on the pizza, but forgot to even cut the onion, it would be a great addition but is still amazing without.

Pizza again!

I love pizza and the past few times we have made it has been amazing!  The crust is just so good, and it is awesome we can make it at home.  And it's super easy!  So last night we made pizza again using this crust recipe.

Then we topped it with fresh basil, roasted red peppers, roasted garlic and fresh mozzarella.  It was amazing!  This is the first time in a very long time we did not top our pizza with cream cheese and it was still really good.  By the way, cream cheese is the best thing to put on pizza, if you have not tried it you are missing out.

Roasted garlic is so good and can be super easy.  If you do not have time to do the long process involving the oven, there is a simpler way!  Just throw some cloves with their peel in a sauce pan (no oil) and turn up the heat.  Once the peels start to get a little brown you can take the garlic out and let it cool a bit.  Then peel it and chop it up.  It gets soft and has the same flavor as roasted garlic in the oven.  And it only takes 10 minutes!

Enjoy.

Pizza

The other night we decided to make pizza.  We made our own dough which was pretty easy as seen below.  And then we topped it with some tomato puree, cream cheese, red peppers and roasted garlic.  It was delicious!  But you could top it with whatever you want. 

Basic Pizza Dough ( taken from How to Cook Everything)

1 tsp instant or rapid-rise yeast

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, plus more as needed ( we used a mixture of white, whole white wheat, and whole wheat)

2 tsp sea salt

1-1 1/4 cup water

2 Tbsl plus 1 tsp olive oil

1. Combine yeast, flour and 2 tsp salt in medium sized bowl and use a mixer with dough hooks to mix together.  Slowly add 1 cup water and 2 Tbsl olive oil. 

2. Once fully combined if it is dry, add another tablespoon or two of water.  If too wet, do the same with flour.  

3. Turn the dough onto a floured work surface and knead by hand a few seconds to form a smooth, round dough ball.  Grease a bowl with the remaining olive oil, and place the dough in it.  Cover with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm, area until dough doubles in size, 1-2 hours.  

Then roll it out onto your choice of pan, add some toppings, and bake at 450 degrees for about 15 minutes.

Enjoy.