“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” - Albert Einstein

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Zucchini Pizza

This summer our dinner are improvised at the level of the TV show "Who's Line is it Anyway". Sunday dinner is a good example. Brenda had set out chicken breasts for us to grill. But after getting home from the Royals game and having had popcorn and an after-game sundae (thanks to a Royals score in the 7th) we weren't all that hungry. We put the chicken back in the fridge for another time. I got out my garage-sale bread machine and got it started on making pizza dough. When Brenda came back in the house she asked, "But what are you going to put on it?". I said, "How about if I grill some onions and peppers and cut up some zucchini?" She didn't think that squash on pizza sounded very good. I thought it was a creative way to use up some of the abundance of zucchini from our garden.

I was starting to think about "Plan B" and how I could avoid making a trip to the store. After a few minutes Brenda announced that she had searched online and found a recipe for zucchini on a pizza. Being the typical male I didn't look at the recipe but proceeded with my improvisation. The rules are simple: use only what's in the fridge, pantry, or growing out in the garden. The result was a surprisingly good pizza. Here's what I did:

I followed the recipe for pizza dough that came with my bread maker, but I added a teaspoon of Italian seasoning.
I cut up green peppers and onions and cooked them until the onions carmelized.
I slice zucchini and fried it in butter until they were browned. I ground pepper on the slices as they cooked.
I spread out the dough and drizzled on olive oil. I then put on creamed cheese and sort of spread it out on the dough.
I placed the onions and peppers around the pizza and laid on the zucchini like pepperoni.
The cheese I had available was the Mexican 4-cheese blend, so I put on a good layer of that.
I then went to our herb garden and got some fresh parsley and basil. I put on a little parsley and then laid on the basil leaves to almost cover the pizza.
I baked it at 425 degrees for 20 minutes.

The result was surprisingly good. We could only eat 2 pieces. We've got leftovers for tonight.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Resourceful!

Dad

Michael said...

That sounds a bit like the kabob-leftovers pizza that we fed you guys last time you came up to visit. I think any grilled vegetable is good on a pizza.