Fontina, Caramelized Onion & Pancetta Pizza

A funny thing happens when you have a food blog (whether it be any good or not). Your friends and family start thinking of you as the "Foodie" in the group or the expert on all things cooking and/or baking.

While it's certainly flattering, I am far from an expert. But I do have a strong passion for food and I do love to cook and bake (and eat!). And because I'm passionate about these things, I have a food blog so I can share my experiences in the kitchen with all of you (whether you like it or not). :)

So when my friends email me or Facebook message me and say "I have a recipe you just HAVE to make!" I consider that to be their equivalent of a food blog. They made something amazing and they want to share it with someone....totally understandable! Plus, I get the benefit of trying something new and then blogging about it to share it with all of YOU. It's a win-win!

My friend, Lindsey, sent me one of those Facebook messages last week about a pizza. But this was not your average pizza, as she explained in the message. It is a sauce-less pizza topped with caramelized onions, fontina cheese and pancetta. She admitted that she was skeptical about the lack of sauce and the odd combination of toppings, but she assured me that it was a wonderful result.
She was right.

Holy. Yum.

The recipe hails from the gods over at Cooking Light....seriously, CL recipe developers: I love you. You never fail me!

The most amazing part of the success of this pizza is that it has very minimal amounts of meat (pancetta) in it and The Hubs STILL LOVED IT! What?!? Who is that man?!

I will warn you that caramelizing onions is a task that must not be rushed, so allow yourself about 30 minutes to complete that part of the recipe. If you rush it, you'll end up with either burnt onions or non-caramelized onions. But once that part is done, it's really just slapping on the toppings and popping it in the oven. (You could even caramelize the onions in advance and have them prepped and ready for the night you're making the pizza!)

Mmmm...caramelization takes time!

Also, if you have trouble finding pancetta in your grocery store (like I did), check your deli meat counter! They had it there at mine, though they had no idea what I was talking about until I pointed to the package of pancetta in their counter and said "That pancetta....that you have right there." ::::eye roll::::

For the crust, this time we decided to go the lazy route and bought a package of fresh wheat pizza dough from Trader Joe's.
It was so good!! We usually make our own dough, but honestly lately we've been less than impressed with our dough-making attempts, so this was a nice change!

And please, if you haven't tried Fontina cheese before, do yourself a favor and go get some NOW! It is so good!
Infinitely better than plain old mozzarella and well worth the slight increase in price!


Fontina, Caramelized Onion & Pancetta Pizza
Source: Cooking Light (my adjustments in red)

Yield: 2 (9-inch) pizzas--we just made one 12-inch pizza (serving size: 2 slices)

Pizza Dough
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 1/2 ounces pancetta (Italian-style bacon) or Canadian bacon, chopped
8 cups sliced onion (about 3 large)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme --I used 1 tsp of dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil, divided
3/4 cup (3 ounces) shredded fontina cheese
Thyme sprigs (optional) --I used fresh basil
Cracked black pepper (optional)

Prepare the Pizza Dough according to directions and roll out.

While dough is rising the second time, heat 1 teaspoon olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat; add pancetta, and sauté for 2 minutes. Add onions, thyme, salt, and white pepper; cook 25 minutes or until onions are browned, stirring frequently.

Preheat oven to 475°.

Brush each prepared pizza crust with 1 1/2 teaspoons oil; top each with half of onion mixture. Sprinkle cheese and fresh basil over each pizza. Bake at 475° for 9 minutes or until crusts are crisp. Cut each pizza into 8 wedges. Garnish with thyme sprigs and sprinkle with black pepper, if desired.


CALORIES 238 (28% from fat); FAT 7.3g (sat 2.7g,mono 3.4g,poly 0.7g); IRON 2mg; CHOLESTEROL 16mg; CALCIUM 87mg; CARBOHYDRATE 34.8g; SODIUM 300mg; PROTEIN 8.6g; FIBER 3.1g

Cooking Light, OCTOBER 1998

Grill 'er Up

Last night's dinner was one that we made a lot the summer before Alex deployed. Somehow though between now and then, we kind of forgot about it.

Well I'm sure glad my memory was jogged and I remembered it because WOW! Everyone should make this recipe. It is the perfect summertime dinner!

I present you with West Coast Grilled Chicken Pizza...

First you make {or buy} pizza dough and roll it out. Then you grill one side of it, flip it over and then top with tomatoes, grilled chicken chunks, crumbled goat cheese, and mozarella cheese.

Then you toss it back on the grill and it looks like this....

That would be good enough on its own but nope...then you really put it over the edge by topping it with a fresh spinach & avocado salad!

It may sound kind of odd but I promise you the flavors just meld together so well. Crunchy crust, creamy goat cheese, tangy salad.

Also, if you've never tried grilling pizza before, I encourage you to try it! It's really not as hard as it may seem and the crust ends up like something you would get out of a brick oven pizzeria.

If you're looking for a summery, light, healthy, and delicious dinner you must try this!

West Coast Grilled Chicken Pizza
Adapted from: Everyday Food

Ingredients

2-3 chicken breasts, cooked & cut into chunks

3 tablespoons olive oil
All-purpose flour, for shaping dough
1 pound store-bought pizza dough, fresh, or thawed if frozen {We used half of our usual homemade whole wheat pizza crust recipe}
2 plum tomatoes, thinly sliced crosswise
2 scallions, white and green parts separated, thinly sliced
1 log (5 ounces) soft goat cheese, crumbled

Enough shreded mozzarella cheese to sprinkle over the pizzas (probably 2-3 handfuls)
Coarse salt and ground pepper
1 bag (5 ounces) baby spinach
1 avocado, halved, pitted, peeled, and diced
2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar

(To cook the chicken breasts we just seasoned them with Mrs. Dash and then grilled them up before we started grilling the pizzas. NOTE: The original recipe does not call for chicken so you could easily leave this out to make it a vegetarian pizza.}

Directions

1. Heat grill to medium. Brush a large rimless baking sheet (or an inverted rimmed sheet) with 1 tablespoon oil. On a lightly floured work surface, roll and stretch dough to two 8-inch ovals or rounds. Transfer to prepared sheet. Brush tops with 1 tablespoon oil.

2. Transfer dough to grill. Cook, without turning over, until undersides are firm and begin to char, 2 to 3 minutes. Using tongs and a large spatula, place crusts on baking sheet, grilled side up.

3. Scatter crusts with tomatoes, scallion whites, and cheese (and chicken, if desired); season with salt and pepper, and slide back onto grill. Cook, rotating occasionally, until cooked through and cheese begins to melt, 3 to 5 minutes. Transfer to a cutting board.

4. In a medium bowl, combine spinach, avocado, scallion greens, vinegar, and remaining tablespoon oil; season with salt and pepper, and toss to combine. Pile mixture onto pizzas; halve, and serve.

What the Crust?!

Another stressful work day for this girl! Why is it that the 2 people who I dislike working with the most are ALWAYS the ones who stop by my office to make marketing requests with the most regularity?? WHY?! I seriously cringe every time I see these two people coming and today I had the pleasure of a visit from BOTH of them. Joy.

I'm also semi-stressed at home because we are preparing for a long weekend trip to my family's ranch with 4 of our friends this weekend. I'm sorta stressed about it because I've never been the hostess at the ranch before...usually there's tons of family there who take charge on things. Eek! Menu planning and grocery shopping will ensue and I hope I get it right!

Anywayyyyy, pizza was on the menu for tonight and we decided to try a new pizza dough recipe. You see, a couple weeks back I made Pioneer Woman's Olive Focaccia and it was a HUGE hit at a party we went to. Unfortunately I failed to take a picture of it so I haven't blogged it.

In her recipe, she mentioned that the dough was basically just a pizza dough recipe. We liked the end result of the focaccia so much that we decided to try it as a pizza dough! To make it a bit healthier, we used half whole wheat flour and half all-purpose and prayed that it wouldn't screw up the recipe, as whole wheat flour sometimes does. We also made the dough in the bread maker, but you could just as easily make it in the kitchenaid.


GOOD NEWS! It was fabulous! The whole wheat didn't seem to affect the texture much at all. This is definitely our new favorite pizza crust recipe. We did think that it could have been a little bit crispier but that's our fault for not cooking it long enough.

Here it is the crust the way we made it:

Whole Wheat Pizza Crust
Adapted from Pioneer Woman

• 1-½ teaspoon Active Dry Yeast
• 1-½ cup Warm Water
• 2 cups All-purpose Flour
• 2 cups Whole Wheat Flour
  
• 1 teaspoon Kosher Salt
• ⅓ cups Olive Oil

Sprinkle yeast over 1 1/2 cups warm (not lukewarm) water. Let stand for a few minutes.

While the yeast stands, put all other ingredients in the bowl of the break maker. Then pour the yeast mixture in the bowl too.

Turn the bread machine to the Dough setting and let it do its thing.

Once the bread machine is finished you can either use it immediately or wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use.

When ready to make the pizza, roll it out using a little flour if needed to keep it from sticking.

This recipe will make enough dough for about 2 or 3 large pizzas, depending on how thin you like it.

Pre-bake the crust at 425 degrees for 10-15 minutes. Pull the crust out and then put on the toppings. Bake another 10 minutes at 425 degrees.

Our Toppings:

• Pepperoni, Mushroom & Garlic
• Tomato, Basil & Garlic

And of course, CHEESE! :)


What are your favorite pizza toppings?

And how do you deal with stress? I tend to kind of shut down when I get stressed. :(

Happy Hubs Pizza

What's for Dinner? 5/30/2010

-Pesto, Chicken & Sun Dried Tomato Pizza {on whole wheat crust}

Hubs announced that he wanted pizza for dinner tonight, so pizza we would have {because, you know, I live to make him happy}.

My only stipulation was that we make whole wheat pizza crust, so you know, I could eat 3 slices and not feel guilty. To accomplish this whole wheat task, we simply subbed whole wheat flour for half of the flour called for in our go-to pizza dough recipe. It turned out well!


Pizza toppings consisted of:
-Pesto
-Grilled Chicken
-Sun Dried Tomatoes
-Goat Cheese
-Shredded Mozzarella

Mmmmm. I love pizza!!

Mediterranean Pizza {What's for Dinner? 4/10/2010}

Yum yum! This was all Alex's idea to make Mediterranean Pizza tonight. I was pretty much planning on us going out to eat or ordering takeout tonight because I thought we didn't have anything in the house to make. Little did I know, while I was napping Alex cranked up the bread machine to start making pizza dough. He's a smart one, I tell ya! I'm so glad we didn't end up going out....this was delicious and much nicer to our wallets. :)


We used the same pizza dough recipe that we always use but made a half batch, which is perfect for one large pizza.

Here's what the toppings consisted of for our Mediterranean Pizza:

• Pesto, spread over the dough
• Kalamata Olives
• Onion
• Sundried Tomatoes
• Feta Cheese Crumbles
• Grilled Chicken Chunks {leftover from earlier this week}
• Italian-Blend Shredded Cheese

It's a great combo! Try it sometime!

Pizza, Pizza! {What's for Dinner 3/12/2010}

Another Friday during Lent, another no-meat pizza! This time we took some homemade pizza dough out of the freezer and loaded it up with mushrooms, red onion, fresh basil, garlic & red bell pepper {no bell pepper on my half though}.

Alex PILED his side up...mine was more modest.


Unfortunately this pizza was just okay. I don't think we let our frozen dough come to room temperature for long enough because it really didn't rise at all. Plus we didn't have enough dough so it ended up being a reaaally thin crust. Alex also tried a new trick to make the pizza sauce stretch a little further by adding tomato paste to it...I didn't like it this way at all. It just tasted like pure tomato paste to me with no spices or flavor. Oh well, you live and you learn! It was a good idea in theory. :)

Ash Wednesday Dinner {What's for Dinner? 2/17/2010}

Happy Ash Wednesday!

As Catholics, we celebrate the first day of Lent by going to Mass and not eating meat. The 2nd part of that tends to be the annoying part, as we are major meat eaters. However, tonight we had a great no-meat alternative: Veggie Pizza! Lots of veggies {kalamata olives, onion, bell pepper, mushrooms} and lots of cheese. Yum!


The priest who conducted Mass today made a great point about how we always consider Lent to mean giving up things like chocolate or coke. But in reality those trivial items don't necessarily bring you any closer to God. He suggested trying to forgive more as a true challenge. That message really hit me hard, as I just wasn't feeling my typical "give up coke for Lent" sacrifice.

So this Lenten season I'm going to try to improve myself and my relationship with God in the following ways:

1. Practice more forgiveness {especially with coworkers}

2. Be more positive at work and life in general {I tend to be a big pessimist}

What are you doing for Lent?

Work Sucks Calzones {What's for Dinner? 2/5/2010}

CALZONES!

These were extremely delicious and exactly what I needed after a HELLACIOUS day of work. Like, for real yo.

/Begin work rant: I love my job itself but the politics and bullsh!t just get to me sometimes. Working in marketing is like being the redheaded step child. If things go to sh!t, blame the marketing department for not doing enough to get the word out. If things go well, don't give any credit to marketing whatsoever because it was clearly ALLLLL just "luck"...or some sh!t like that.

"We're not doing well. It's marketing's fault!!" Uhhhhh no. Maybe, just MAYBE the fact that you're not doing well has more to do with the fact that the event you planned is overpriced and NOT APPEALING to people. Ya think maybe that has something to do with it since this is the 3rd year in a row that this event has not done well? Hmmm??? Yeah....I do.

And for the record, I'm a perfectionist. I expect a LOT out of myself. I always have {just ask my parents what happened the first time I came home with a B on my report card...meltdown city....which then turned out to be a mistake on the part of the teacher and I actually had earned a 93. But I digress.} So when people tell me I'm not doing my job well, that is like the ultimate insult to me. I don't handle it well....in fact, I cry. Yeah....embarrassing and unprofessional, I know this. But that's just the way I am.

Now go hug someone from your marketing department and thank them for all that they do. I'm sure they need it.

Oh and, not to mention, my boss is crazy. That makes things....ummmm fun? I'm not going to say much more on that subject because this is a public blog. But yeahhhh....whackadoodle.

/End work rant.




Anywayyyyy, Alex made the dough for these calzones in the bread machine using this recipe. We give this dough recipe two thumbs up! It was crispy but tender at the same time and just really good. We will probably just use this recipe in the future for pizza dough because it was so good.

We filled our calzones with mozz cheese, turkey pepperoni & sauce. {I insisted that calzones aren't supposed to have sauce inside them but Alex ignored me and put it in anyway. In the end, I actually like them better with sauce on the inside! So mark one point on the board for Alex!}

And after eating a HUGE calzone for dinner, 3 glasses of wine and a wonderful husband who let me rant about my no good, horrible, awful day I felt muuuuuccchhhh better. :)