Maineiac Heart

My friend Denise is a fantastic cook and often my go-to for hep with my novice skills. She had made a date, bacon, and mozzarella pizza for a get-together in late summer. It was scrumptious and inspired me to give pizza a try.

Newsflash for novice cooks: easiest food to master! I don't have a pizza stone or peel. I thought about what might be somewhat equivalent for holding consistent heat and used a cast iron skillet. Turns out I am not the genius I thought I was, as a Google search turns up lots of these recipes. Anyhoo, I decided to make a fig, Jarlesberg, and caramelized onion pizza. (No bacon, as my husband is a vegetarian.) It was perfection.

I used this Jim Lahey no-knead pizza dough recipe and seriouseats.com video for technique

Ingredients:

9 oz. package of Golden California Figs (my friend Denise has done this with (more if you need it to thicken the liquid)

1 tbspn. butter, one large onion chopped,

1/2 c (or more) of Jarlsberg cheese, one round of pizza dough (recipe link above) warmed to room temperature.

Preheat the oven at 500.

Process:

Never having cooked with figs, I was no sure what to do with the stems (update: you can leave them on if you want), so I cut them off each one, then sliced/chopped them up, threw them in a pot, almost covered them with water and brought it to a boil. It wasn't thickening enough, so I called Denise. She said, throw in a tablespoon of cornstarch and three more tablespoons of water, and then bring it to a boil, again. That worked! I then threw all of it into a food processor and pulsed it three times. It made a fig paste to spread onto the pizza. (You can decide how much fig you want. I used half of my paste.) I caramelized a large onion in butter (it was probably a tablespoon). Lastly, I shredded some Jarlsberg cheese. There are recipes for this combination with Gruyere, but that costs a fortune at my grocery store up here in the north woods. Jarlsberg is somewhat similar cheese, so I went with that. I spread the figs on first, then put half the onions, covered with Jarlsberg, and then the last half of the onions.

One of the cast iron pan recipes I checked out said to briefly warm the pan on the stove top prior to putting the pizza in it. Then, I switched the oven to the broiler, on High. Cooked the pizza for 5 minutes, and it was done! Gooey and golden and delicious, with a crust just crispy enough to make it a bit crunchy. Denise did say to pay attention to the crust and not let it get too burnt. I didn't have to do that. The five minutes seemed just right.

The trickiest part was getting it out of the skillet. I used two spatulas and went at it from either side, and plopped it onto a cutting board.

On to the next pizza! For this I went with maple syrup roasted butternut squash, caramelized shallots and onion, some sliced up left-over green pepper, grated mozzarella and parmigiano-reggiano cheeses, and a white sauce. The inspiration pizza was Brandon's of Kitchen Kofidence. You can find it here.

I peeled and sliced open a butternut squash, scooped the seeds out with an ice cream scooper (works for me), and then diced the squash. I drizzled both olive oil and maple syrup over the squash and mixed it up so all the pieces were covered with both liquids. That was topped by a sprinkling of sea salt and ground black pepper. I threw some fresh lemon thyme leaves into the mix, as well. I put it into a 425 degree oven and roasted for about 25 minutes, stirring around 10-15 minutes into the roasting. You can check around 20 minutes to see if the squash is soft enough to have a fork easily insert into it. It came out smelling lovely.

While the squash roasted I worked on the other ingredients. I made this white sauce adding some seasonings of my choosing (I didn't use basil, but relied on the lemon thyme in the roasted squash), and sauteed the shallot and onion in about a tablespoon of butter (feel free to reduce or add butter to your desire) until they were caramelized. The green peppers were leftovers so I didn't have to do anything there. I had sauteed them a day before for another meal, so you decide how you like them.

Next, I placed the pizza dough (watch the serious eats video above to see how to "toss" it) into the pre-warmed skillet, slathered the white sauce onto it, scattered the roasted green peppers, squash and caramelized shallot and onion, covered with mixture of grated parmigiano-reggiano and mozzarella, and popped it under the high broiler.

This one went quickly and I forgot to take a picture of the finished product!

Roasted Squash Pizza Ingredients:

(white sauce) 2 tbspns. butter, 3 tbspns. flour, 1 c milk,1/4 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp black pepper, 1 clove garlic minced, 1/2 c parmigiano-reggiano; (rest of toppings) 1 butternut squash, two tbspns. maple syrup, 1 tbspn. olive oil, 1 tsp. fresh lemon thyme (or basil), 1 shallot, 1 medium onion, 1 green pepper, 1 tbspn. butter, 1/2 c. mozzarella grated, 1/2 c. parmigiano-reggiano grated.