Easy Recipes

I tend to like my pizza — my home-made pizza at least — topped with strong flavors. Kale, blue cheese and walnuts. Garlic scapes and potato. Asparagus, goat cheese and anchovies. But a hot, late summer night calls for a different kind of pizza. A more delicate pizza. A summer pizza. A corn, tomato and basil pizza.

I know that corn on pizza doesnt sound very Italian. And I know that I used a hippie whole wheat dough, that my crust is entirely devoid of char, and my mozzarella started to brown. It was just that kind of night. But even so — this pizza was delicious.

The sweet corn only gets sweeter in a hot oven, and the punchy bursts of tomato (I went with some never-disappointing Sungolds a friend was kind enough to share form her garden) and fresh basil come together in a way that just feels perfect. Its sweet and juicy (from both the corn and the tomatoes), but its also savory and aromatic. And even though its pizza, its surprisingly light. Its summer.


Corn, Cherry Tomato and Basil Pizza

1 ball of pizza dough, ~10 oz
semolina or regular flour for dusting
1/4-1/3 lb mozarella, shredded
kernels shaved off 1 ear of corn
2 dozen small cherry tomatoes (preferably Sungold), sliced in half
olive oil
coarse salt
1 handful basil leaves, torn if large

Preheat your oven, with a pizza stone if you have, to 500 degrees for an hour. If your pizza dough has been refrigerated, let it come to room temperature for an hour.

Place the pizza dough on a lightly-floured counter top, and press outward into a thick disk (leaving a 1" unpressed area along the edge as the crust). Pick up the disk and let it drape over the backs of your hands, letting gravity help you stretch it into a 12-14" circle. If the dough resists, let it relax for a few minutes, then try again. Place the stretched dough on a peel (or overturned cookie sheet or cutting board) thats lightly dusted with semolina or other type of flour.

Scatter the mozzarella on top of the dough, then the corn and tomatoes. Drizzle the whole pizza with a small amount of olive oil, and a sprinkling of salt. Slide the pizza onto the preheated stone in your oven, and bake ~7-10 minutes, until the crust browns and the cheese melts.

Remove the pizza from the oven, and let cool for a moment (if youre making one pizza, you can leave it on the stone, otherwise I like to transfer to a rack, or just slide a knife or such between the peel/cutting board and the pie, to let the steam vent so it doesnt soften itself). Transfer to a cutting board if you havent already, and scatter on the basil. Slice and serve.

Summer didnt really hit Portland until about 3 days ago. These last few weeks featured buckets of rain, and chilly winds that made you want cover any exposed flesh. In mid-June. But once the sun comes out, it wipes away any memory of the blustery past. Right now my clothes are drying outside on the line, the dog is snoozing in the sun, and a lone glass or two still needs to be gathered in from last nights backyard party. Theres really not much to remind us of the last few cold and damp weeks. But if you look at the farmers markets, you can see the aftershocks. Harvests are a few weeks late. Oregons beloved hood strawberries are a touch waterlogged this year, not quite their usual punchy flavor-filled selves. But the biggest loser seems to have been garlic.

Last month I thinned out tasty shoots of green garlic from the garden, and was eagerly awaiting the proper harvest. But within a few weeks, reddish-brown spots started showing up, the sign of garlic rust. According to gardening sites, rust is promoted by low light and high moisture levels, so I suppose we didnt stand a chance. Most of our neighbors are in the same boat. My gardening partner and I pulled out all of the garlic, to prevent the infection from setting into the soil. Its a bit disheartening. But I comforted myself with garlic scapes.

Scapes are the adorably curled tops of the garlic plant, which would turn into flowers if left to grow. But they can be harvested and cooked (even when you dont have to pull up the whole plant), and taste vaguely like garlic-dressed asparagus. You can grind them into a delicious pesto with the usual ingredients, but I think its much nicer to feature them in recipes that highlight their curls. Like this pizza.

If you make this at home, you dont need to load up quite so many scapes on top of your pizza (I got a bit carried away). But theyre so delicious, you might want to anyways. You can also cut them into somewhat more manageable lengths, but wheres the fun in that? As with my asparagus pizza, I turned to a sauce-free pie to highlight the flavor of the scapes. I laid down a bed of boiled waxy red potatoes, left over from hash browns a few mornings earlier. You can also use mozarella, but its surprisingly nice with just potatoes, which create a creamy and satisfying base. A sprinkling of fusty bleu cheese stands up to the equally-assertive scapes, and a scattering of walnuts rounds it out with a welcome crunch and nutty depth.


Garlic Scape Potato Pizza

1 ball of pizza dough, ~10 oz (Im still a big cheerleader for the recipe in Artisan Breads Every Day by the great Peter Reinhart)
olive oil
2 good-sized waxy red or yellow potatoes, boiled and sliced into 1/4" rounds
3 Tbsp walnuts, untoasted (theyll toast up enough in the oven)
3 Tbsp crumbled bleu cheese
~6-8 garlic scapes, tossed with a light spray of olive oil
salt

Preheat your oven, with a pizza stone if you have, to 500 degrees for 1-2 hours. If your pizza dough has been refrigerated (as most good pizza doughs will be), let it come to room temperature for 1 1/2 hours.

Place the pizza dough on a lightly-floured counter top, and press outward into a thick disk (leaving a 1" unpressed area along the edge as the crust). Pick up the disk and let it drape over the backs of your hands, letting gravity help you stretch it into a 12-14" circle. If the dough resists, let it relax for a few minutes, then try again. Place the stretched dough on a peel (or overturned cookie sheet or cutting board) thats lightly dusted with semolina or other type of flour.

Lay your potato slices evenly on top of the dough, and drizzle lightly with olive oil. Scatter the walnuts and bleu cheese, then top with garlic scapes. Slide the pizza onto the preheated stone in your oven, and bake ~7-10 minutes, until the crust browns and the cheese melts.

Remove the pizza from the oven, and let cool for a moment (I like to move it to a rack for just half a minute, to let the steam escape from the crust while I reheat the peel). Sprinkle with a touch of salt, slice and serve.

I apologize for the "atmospheric" quality of this low-light stovetop shot. There are times when you want to artfully compose a food picture, and capture for all time the best and truest aspect of the meal. And then there are times where you really want to snap the quickest shot you can, because everyones waiting and ohmygod that looks so good put the camera away and give me a piece already! The pizza didnt stand a chance.

Ill try to get a better picture up here soon. Because Ill definitely be making this pizza again. But as a public service, I felt obligated to get this recipe posted as soon as possible. Because if you have asparagus, you should make this. Now.

Usually Im of the opinion that its hard to improve upon the flavor of fresh asparagus. Whether lightly steamed, pan-roasted, grilled, or shaved raw, asparagus dont need much to showcase their flavor. Maybe a drizzle of butter or olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, the lightest shavings of cheese. When it comes down to it, you dont need much more than a pair of fingers to enjoy them. Ive tried a variety of involved asparagus preparations, from batter-dipped deep-fried spears at the farmers market to filled and sauced pastas. But for the most part they just left me hungry for the sweet simplicity of the straight-up vegetable. Until I hit upon this pizza.

This pizza undoubtedly has a lot going on--goat cheese, chili flakes, lemon zest, and (if you dare) anchovies--but it somehow heightens rather than hides the fresh green flavor of asparagus. The earthly spears are perked up by the tangy goat cheese and bright lemon zest, and set on a bed of mellow mozzarella. I realize not everybody is an anchovy lover, but I think the briny fillets add just the right final note.

Springtime Asparagus Pizza

A good quality pizza dough and crazy-hot oven will help you get the best possible pizza. The anchovies, should you desire them, are added after the pizza comes out of the oven (otherwise they bake into dried-out little salt bombs).

1 ball of pizza dough, ~10 oz (Im currently obsessed with the recipe in Artisan Breads Every Day by the esteemed Peter Reinhart)
semolina or regular flour for dusting
~3/4 lb pencil thin asparagus, cut in half and tossed with a drizzle of olive oil and salt
1/4-1/3 lb mozarella, shredded
~2 oz soft goat cheese, crumbled
zest of 1 lemon
1/4 tsp chili flakes
8 oil-packed anchovies (can be omitted or increased according to taste)

Preheat your oven, with a pizza stone if you have, to 500 degrees for 2 hours. If your pizza dough has been refrigerated (as most good pizza doughs will be), let it come to room temperature for 1 1/2 hours.

Place the pizza dough on a lightly-floured counter top, and press outward into a thick disk (leaving a 1" unpressed area along the edge as the crust). Pick up the disk and let it drape over the backs of your hands, letting gravity help you stretch it into a 12-14" circle. If the dough resists, let it relax for a few minutes, then try again. Place the stretched dough on a peel (or overturned cookie sheet or cutting board) thats lightly dusted with semolina or other type of flour.

Scatter the mozzarella on top of the dough, then the asparagus and clumps of goat cheese in whatever artful pattern you desire. Side the pizza onto the preheated stone in your oven, and bake ~7-10 minutes, until the crust browns and the cheese melts.

Remove the pizza from the oven, and let cool for a moment (I like to move it to a rack for just half a minute, to let the steam escape from the crust while I reheat the peel). Transfer to a cutting board and scatter the lemon zest and chili flakes on top. Add anchovies, if desired. Slice and serve.

During a college car trip back in the 90s, a friend put on a cassette from the band Mazzy Star. It was a nice album, every song awash with a thrummy base of swirling guitars, and sleepy, slurry vocals layered on top. After a few songs that riffed on this theme, my friend Noah turned to me. "You know," he observed, "they have a really good sound. But the problem with having a particular sound is that all your songs, they kinda sound the same." I think his assessment is pretty spot-on for that particular flavor of early-90s alternative rock. And its also pretty much how I feel about kale.

To back up, I am a big fan of kale. Huge. I think its lovely, and I think everyone should eat a lot of it (as I try to advertise). Its got a really good sound, so to speak, all full of nutrient-rich dark-green leafy goodness. But the thing is, Im not always up for that big pile of brassica. And for a while, thats all I thought kale could be. But recently, Ive learned how to make kale sing a different song.

The secret turns out to be balance: pairing kale with ingredients that dont overpower it, but join forces to steer it in an interesting new direction. In this case, kale is sauteed up with some olive oil and garlic, and then laid down on top of an uncooked pizza crust (I find that a whole wheat dough is particularly good at standing up to the strong flavor of kale). Its then topped with walnuts to give a nutty depth, funky blue cheese to spark it up, and a handful of thinly-sliced onions that will soften invitingly. All of these strong and pungent flavors hold their own, and combine with kale to make a beautifully balanced pie. While I easily get overwhelmed by pots of plain kale, I could eat this pizza every week -- its a song I never get tired of hearing.


Kale Pizza with Blue Cheese and Walnuts

yields 2 pizzas

2 balls pizza dough (~10 ounces each, preferably whole wheat)
2 Tbsp olive oil, plus more for drizzling
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 large bunch kale, or two smaller bunches (I like Red Russian), washed and dried and roughly chopped
wedge of lemon
flour or semolina for dusting
~1/3 cup roughly chopped walnut halves (do not toast, as theyll brown in the oven)
~1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese
1/2 red or yellow onion, sliced into thin half-moons
salt

Preheat your oven, with a pizza stone if you have, to 500 degrees for an hour. If your pizza dough has been refrigerated, let it sit, covered, at room temperature for about the same amount of time.

While the oven is preheating and the dough is warming, prepare the kale. Heat the olive oil in a large pot over a medium heat. Add the garlic and saute until starting to brown. Add the kale along with a pinch of salt, and saute until softened, covering the pot between stirring to help the kale wilt. When its almost done, squeeze the wedge of lemon over the top and stir to combine. Turn off the heat and set aside.

Place one ball of the pizza dough on a lightly-floured counter top, and press outward into a thick disk (leaving a 1" unpressed area along the edge as the crust). Pick up the disk and let it drape over the backs of your hands, letting gravity help you stretch it into a 12-14" circle. If the dough resists, let it relax for a few minutes, then try again. Place the stretched dough on a peel (or overturned cookie sheet or cutting board) thats lightly dusted with semolina or other type of flour.

Take half the sauteed kale, and sprinkle evenly over the dough. Scatter half the walnuts, half the blue cheese, and half the onions on top. Drizzle lightly with olive oil, and sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Slide the pizza onto the preheated stone in your oven, reduce the heat to 450, and bake ~7-10 minutes, until the crust browns. Remove the pizza from the oven, let cool for a moment, and slice and serve.

I wasnt entirely sure what to call this creation. Its almost more of a flatbread than a pizza. Its got a crust, true (in the Neapolitan style), but no lashings of red sauce, no thick top layer of mozarella. Im open to a new name, if youve got one. Whatever it is, its delicious.

I was initially got the idea for this pie the amazing Cheeseboard Collective, an cheesemonger/pizzeria that my Berkeley-based friends adore. Their pizzas tend to have unorthodox topping combinations, based upon the seasonal yield in Northern California. Although many sound strange (and upsetting to five-year-olds expecting pepperoni), they seldom disappoint.

Years ago I had a pizza of theirs, topped with sauce and cheese, and some of these ingredients. It was delicious, but I felt that there was a lighter, more summery pie trapped inside. I got rid of the sauce and cheese, upped the amount of chopped fresh tomatoes for moistness, and added more lemon juice and zest to tie it together. The result is reminiscent of the Minted Feta Flatbread, but more of a substantial meal, with the cilantro taking out of the Middle East, and into someplace else entirely. Its a wonderful way to use the seasons fresh tomatoes, brightened up with salty cheese, sharp lemon juice, and cilantro. Its perfect with a side of brown fava beans, a salad, or just on its own.


Lemony Tomato Feta Cilantro Pizza
makes two pies

crust adapted from Jeffrey Steingartens Neapolitan-American Pizza, although you can grab two bags of dough from the supermarket if youre tight on time

Dough:

3/4 tsp active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups cool water
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 cups flour

Topping:

scant 4 cups chopped tomatoes, drained in a colander of excess liquid
1 cup loosely-packed crumbled feta cheese
1/2 red or yellow onion, thinly sliced in half moons
4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
olive oil for drizzling
1 bunch cilantro, washed and roughly chopped
juice and zest of 1 lemon
black pepper

To make the dough:

In the bowl of a mixer, combine the yeast and water and allow to sit for a few minutes for the yeast to soften. Add salt and flour, mix with a paddle until well combined. The dough will be very moist. Mix on slow speed with a paddle attachment for a minute (this can also be done with just a wooden spoon, if needed).

Coat a clean counter with a thick layer of flour, and pour the dough out. It will drift and ooze, like a big blob. Grab the floured underside, and gently fold it over the top, covering the dough blog. Let rest 10 minutes. Divide the dough in two, shape each piece into a ball, and place each in an oiled bowl. You dont need to oil the top of the dough -- just make sure it has a nice dusting of flour. Cover tightly with plastic, and allow to rise at room temperature until doubled (aobut 3-4 hours). Move to the refrigerator, for a minimum of 1 hour, an ideal of 3, and a maximum of 24.

To make the pizza:

Preheat the oven, with a pizza stone if you have, to 500 degrees for an hour. When its been almost an hour, prepare your toppings, and remove the dough balls from the refrigerator. Stretch the dough out to pizza size, and then place it on your pre-heated stone. Working quickly, scatter half the tomatoes over the pizzas, then half the feta, garlic and onions. Drizzle olive oil over the top. Place in the oven, and bake until the crust is browned to your liking (generally 10-15 minutes). If you have a pizza peel, you can assemble the pizza on the peel, then slide it onto the stone in the oven, avoiding the frenzied construction.

When the pizza is browned, remove from the oven. Scatter half of the cilantro over the top, half of the lemon zest, and squeeze the lemon juice evenly across. Grind some fresh pepper over it (the feta should supply enough salt, but feel free to add more if your feta isnt briny enough). Slice and enjoy. Repeat with second pizza.

Despite the thumbnail-sized hail pelting down from the sky a few days ago, it is indeed spring. Which means asparagus. Which, in turn, means asparagus pizza.

Ive talked before about the joys of asparagus pizza, in its many forms. And now Ive gathered them together over at The Oregonian. Click on over to read about the delicious things that happen when asparagus meets white pies. Im fond of this mint and hazelnut variation, though the shrimp, leek and mascarpone pie might be just about the best thing Ive had all season.

A couple months back, I sung the praises of the seasonal flatbread. So easy, so thrifty, so crowd-pleasing, so perfect for highlighting the seasons harvest with just a wee bit of cheese to hold it all together. And now, the November installment in the series: the butternut squash pizza.

This is so surprisingly good, greater than the sum of its winter-squash-and-starch parts. A simple lean dough is topped with thinly-sliced squash (you soak it in salted water the night before, which renders it both softer and tastier), some onions and sage, and then just a sprinkling of cheese and breadcrumbs to tie it all together. The end result is deep and savory, with that bit of squashy sweetness, and rich and creamy with only a bit of dairy.

And in other news of the power of bread to unify, heres a recent spot I produced on Election Day Communion. If theres any bread that may have the power to pull us through electoral politics, Im putting my faith in this one.


Winter Squash Pizza (Pizza Zucca)

reconstructed based upon the guidelines from Grandaisy Bakery, as told to Slice
makes one large pizza, serving ~6

1 pound squash (about half a standard butternut, or two small delicatas)
salt
1 pound pizza dough (Im currently obsessed with the recipe in Jim Laheys book, which you all should get)
1/3 pound gruyere or similar cheese
1/2 red or yellow onion, cut into 1/2-inch dice
handful of sage leaves, coarsely chopped
olive oil
salt and pepper
1/4 cup breadcrumbs

The day before: If your squash is large, cut it in half (you only need about a pound). Peel and scoop out the seeds, then slice very thin (about 1/8-inch thick). Fill a large bowl with water, and salt until it tastes quite salty, and add the squash slices. Let sit overnight.

When youre ready to make the pizza, take your dough out of the fridge if its refrigerated, and let come to room temperature for an hour. Preheat your oven to 500° Farenheit, and place a rack near the top.

While the oven is heating and the dough is warming, prepare the filling. Drain the squash, then place in a large bowl and toss with the grated cheese, onion, and sage leaves. Drizzle in a few spoonfuls of olive oil, until its well coated, and season with salt and pepper (you shouldnt need too much salt, since the squash will have taken in some salt from its soak, but you want to have enough to offset the squashs sweetness). Set aside.

Grease a half-sheet tray with olive oil, or line with parchment. Turn the dough out onto a lightly-floured countertop, and gently stretch out into a long rectangle (I like to sort of drape it over the backs of my hands, to allow the weight to help stretch). If the dough resists, let sit for a few minutes to relax, and try again. When the dough is stretched out, transfer to the prepared tray, then push-pull it until it is evenly spread to the edges.

Sprinkle the squash filling evenly over the dough, right up to the edges. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs evenly over the top. Bake until the squash is baked and starting to brown, and any dough you can see appears cooked, ~20-30 minutes. Let cool slightly, slice into squares, and serve.