Saturday, February 14, 2009

Butternut squash and onion pizza

**This is not a gluten-free recipe and was posted before I eliminated gluten from my diet. Use your favorite gluten-free pizza crust instead.**

Butternut squash and onion pizza, adapted from Vegetarian Planet by Didi Emmons
It's pizza time again! When I first made the pizza dough I was imagining that I would use it to make more traditional pizzas, but lately I've happened upon a number of new and different recipes. So, here's another pizza that will keep your pizza taste buds on their toes (if only we really had pizza taste buds...).

Butternut squash and onion pizza (Adapted from "Vegetarian Planet" by Didi Emmons)

1/3 butternut squash, peeled and sliced very thinly
1 medium onion, sliced
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp dried sage
1/4 cup cornmeal
1 Tbsp parmesan cheese

Take the pizza dough out of the refrigerator at least an hour before you plan to use it (preferably more like 2-3 hours). If using frozen dough, let it thaw in the refrigerator overnight before taking it out to come to room temp.

Combine squash, onion, oil, and sage and spread onto baking dish. Cook at 400 until squash is tender and onion begins to brown (about 25 min), stirring occasionally. Spread the cornmeal out onto a baking sheet. Pull the dough out into a circle (about 12" in diameter) and put onto cornmeal. When squash is done, increase oven temp to 450 and cook dough by itself for 3 min. Then put squash and onion mixture on top of dough and bake for 8-10 more min, until dough is done and begins to brown. Grate/shred parmesan cheese on top. Serves 2.

The frozen dough worked great, but I did things a little differently with it this time. First off, I let it sit at room temp for 2.5 hours, and that gave it more time to rise and gave me a thicker crust. Also, instead of oiling the back of a baking sheet, I used the cornmeal method on the correct side of the sheet to keep the dough from sticking. This worked a lot better and was easier to clean. And I liked cooking the dough for a few minutes before adding the toppings. In this case I wasn't dealing with juicy toppings, but I think it still helped the crust have more life to it.

I really liked this combo. After eating a ton of cabbage salad yesterday afternoon, I wasn't too hungry when dinner time rolled around, but I was determined to eat a little piece of this pizza. Before I knew it, half of it was gone. I'm having fun trying out new pizza creations, and I'm very excited that there are 4 more balls of dough in the freezer!

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