The Daily Grind, Chop and Fry

My favorite, the grown-up pizza. I’ve made pizza at least once a month for years, and once I started making this pizza I was done making others. Making it yourself is so worthwhile – right off the bat you are using much higher quality cheese than what you get with delivery pizza, and that alone makes it worth the trouble. I’ve never figured out how much it costs to make a pizza at home, but it can’t cost half of what it costs to order it. The only thing I wish I could change about home made pizza is the shape. I can’t get it to be round to save my life.
Edit – I’ve finally gotten pizza dough to behave! I’ll post the new dough recipe and photos of the final product when I make it again.

Now, if we didn’t live out in the boonies and there actually was decent pizza to be had (oh, what I wouldn’t give to be able to walk down the street to the original Pizzeria Regina again!), maybe I’d be singing a different tune.
1/2 batch Basic Pizza Dough, rolled out.
1/2 fennel bulb, washed, trimmed and sliced into 1/4″ strips.
1/2 red pepper, cored and seeded
5 – 6 calamata olives, pitted and halved
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp basil pesto
3 oz. chevre
4 oz feta
1 oz cheddar

Roast the peppers: place peppers on a sheet of foil on a baking sheet. Place the peppers under a hot broiler and turn when the skin becomes charred at the top. Continue charring the skin until the most of the pepper is black. Remove from oven, wrap the cooked pepper in the foil and allow to rest until cook enough to handle. Peel and rub the charred skin away, until you have the soft flesh remaining. Don’t worry about getting every last bit of skin off. Slice or tear roasted peppers into quarter inch strips if they are still in large chunks. (I’m not super fussy – see photo for proof.)

Meanwhile, caramelize the fennel: Barely cover a heated heavy skillet with olive oil. The idea is to go low and slow with the fennel. Keep the heat below medium, and stir the fennel often to keep it from burning. Cook until fennel is soft and fragrant, about 20 minutes. You can cover the pan and add a tablespoon of water if it starts sticking, just don’t forget to peek at it every few minutes.

Put the dough on your cooking surface and gently spoon the pesto on the top of the dough. (You don’t want to push the dough into a screen, if that’s what you are using. And if you are using a stone, build your pizza on a peel and use a lot of corn meal so you can slide it easily.) Brush with oil to even pesto out. Arrange fennel, peppers, and olives on the pizza in amount desired. Top evenly with feta, then cheddar (I like a little sprinkle of cheddar on pizza for the nice way it browns), then chevre cheeses.

Put in oven and bake until done – this varies according to your oven, how thick you rolled out your dough, and Lord knows what else. Usually about 8 minutes. The cheese should be bubbly and turning golden, the dough should not be doughy. Try to turn the pizza once while it is cooking. If you are making another pizza, you’ll be busy doing that while you are waiting for this one to cook.

Shopping List

1 fennel bulb
1 red pepper
5 – 6 calamata olives
olive oil
2 tbsp basil pesto
3 oz. chevre
4 oz feta
3 oz cheddar