There are some tasty dishes in this thread!
Pesto Pizza with Roasted Beet and Pear Salad
This is my second attempt at making my own dough and sauce.
Homemade Pesto Pizza with Prosciutto, Bacon, Shitake Mushrooms, Sundried Tomatoes, and Cheese (Cambozola, Aged Cheddar and Parmesean).
Dough:
1/2 t dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
Pinch salt
1 T olive oil
2 T cornmeal
1 cup of all purpose flour (more or less)
1. Disolve yeast in warm water.
2. Add salt, olive oil, and cornmeal.
3. Stir in 2/3 cup flour, then addd rest to form a soft dough.
4. Knead and let rest for at least 1/2 hour or overnight in the fridge. (You want to knead the bread hard for about 5 minutes - if you knead hard enough the dough won't stick much too the surface (preferably wood). Sprinkle a bit of flour on the surface beforehand.
Pesto:
1/2 cup basil leaves
few leaves of parsley (optional)
2 T pine nuts
1 clove garlic
1/2 t salt
1/4 cup olive oil
grated parmesan, pepper
1. I put all ingredients in my blender except for the olive oil and parmesean. Pulse.
2. Add the olive oil slowly in the blender, pulse again. Finish with parm and pepper. (If you have the time and the tools, you'll get a MUCH better quality pesto if you make it using a mortar and pestle.)
I preheated the oven to 450 degrees.
I then used a rolling pin to roll out the dough. I also have a pizza stone, so I then moved the dough to the stone to finish forming the crust.
I spread the pesto over the crust, and added the prosciutto, cambozola cheese (which is a combination of gargonzola and camembert - a nice introduction to blue cheese if you haven't tried it), aged cheddar and parmesean. I had some cooked bacon and shitake mushrooms left in the fridge so I threw those on as well. Then I remembered that I wanted to add sundried tomatoes, so I placed them on top. (I actually should have put these ingredients under the cheese b/c they scortched a bit).
Into the oven for about 20 minutes until the crust was browned.
Beet and Pear Salad:
-2-3 beets, washed, drizzled in olive oil, bit of salt and pepper, and roasted in the oven for about 45 minutes at 400 degrees. Sliced when cooled.
-1/2 pear cored and sliced
-Some walnuts toasted in the preheated oven for about 5 minutes.
-Salad greens
Vinaigrette
-Juice of 1/2 lemon
-1 T red wine vinegar
-1/2 t dijon mustard
-1/3 cup good quality, extra virgin olive oil
-pinch of toasted fennel & cumin seeds, slightly crushed (optional but awesome). Basically you just put some fennel and cumin seeds in a frying pan on medium heat, no oil, and let them toast until fragrant being careful not to burn them. Let them cool, then crush them. I threw them in a ziplock bag and crushed them with a beer mug. You could use a pestle/mortar if you have one - I broke my ceramic pestle when it hit the concrete floor.
-salt and pepper
Whisk the vinaigette together. Add to the greens in a bowl a little at a time, work with your hands until you strike the right balance of greens/dressing. Add beets, pear, walnuts on top of the salad. Served with a nicely hopped Bass Ale clone that I made at the local U-brew.
