roasted vegetable pizza

i’m not gonna lie, i was at first skeptical of the idea when martha claimed that a good pizza could be made by putting starch on starch (potatoes, carrots, etc on dough). nutrition aside, turns out it rules! this is absolutely one of the best things i’ve ever cooked, and as promised, is actually a well-disguised way to use leftovers (see previous post). this dinner wins!, in part because it lets me leave you with less chitchat, more photos, which is what i always wanted this blog to be; and the other part because of its crunchy, tangy, autumn-y pizza goodness.

roasted autumn vegetable pizza

adapted from Martha Stewart Everyday Food

serves 4

• 1 lb pizza dough
• 1 cup ricotta
• leftover roasted autumn vegetables
• 4 oz goat cheese

1. Preheat your oven to the max 500 degrees with a rack in the lowest position and a pizza stone on the rack. (Don’t be like me, buying a $40 pizza stone so it can shatter in the oven. Go to a home improvement store and get an unvarnished floor tile for three bucks. I’ve been using mine for years, and it’s a champ! If you don’t have a pizza tile or stone, place an upside-down cookie sheet or rimless pan in the oven instead to preheat.)
2. Cut a large sheet of parchment paper for your work surface. Begin stretching the dough into a 16-inch round, rectangle or polygon. But promise me you will not use a rolling pin! Rolling the dough presses out all the air pockets and bubbles, making it a tough, crackery crust (and not in a good Walery’s way, either). Hold the dough up with both hands, letting gravity help stretch it. Let it rest, then stretch some more. It really will become large enough and you won’t have to work hard at all. When it’s stretched to size, slide the dough, on it’s parchment, onto the underside of a cookie sheet — this is your pizza peel.
3. Use this cookie sheet to slide the parchment with the dough — very carefully! — onto the pan or tile that got super-hot inside the oven.
4. Let the bare crust par-bake until just beginning to brown; this may take 8 or 10 minutes. Then slide it back out onto your not-hot overturned cookie sheet and bring back to your work surface.
5. Spread the ricotta on the crust, sprinkle with the cold roasted vegetables, and crumble the goat cheese over that.
6. Slide her back into the oven, reduce heat to 450, and bake until crust is browned and crispy and goat cheese has just begun to color (If you’ve done right, the parchment paper edges will have browned at such a high heat they will almost crumble while you’re slicing the pie.  If so, good job: you just made decent pizza in a home oven!).

leftovers rating: A+

unless you’re one of those weirdos who doesn’t love cold pizza.

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