The pizza craving hit hard yesterday... but few of the usual suspects were lurking in the pantry. What's a cook to do? No mozzarella, no fresh herbs (endless winter in Yonkers)...
But wait!!!
I have arugula, I have onions, and garlic, and kalamata olives... and a log of fresh goat cheese...
Knowing that this was going to be a very full-flavored pizza, I decided to do an experiment I've been wanting to try... I replaced about a cup of AP flour in my pizza dough recipe with whole wheat! While that started to rise, I minced an onion and, borrowing from the Indian food world, brown-fried it until dark. To that I added a few minced garlic cloves, and about a 1/2 cup of kalamata olives that I pitted and rough chopped.
I let all of that cook another two minutes to soften the garlic and then let it cool. Then I rough chopped two handfuls of baby arugula. When the dough was ready, and the oven preheated, I slathered the pizza dough with the onion-garlic-olive mix, sprinkled it with red pepper flakes, covered that with the arugula, and topped the pie with about 3 ounces of crumbled goat cheese and a dusting of Parmesan...
(NOTE: hiding the greens and the garlic-onion mix under the cheeses prevents them from burning!)
Off to the oven for the patented method of cooking... (http://www.thisoldchef.com/blog.html/basic_pizza_dough/)
And boy, what a revelation! The crust tasted remarkably "wheat-y," the brown-fried onions were both sweet and deep, the goat cheese was shockingly flavorful compared to mozzarella and, all in all, it worked! It was of a piece. And speaking of pieces... It was so full of flavor that we were satisfied with two pieces each... Shocking, I tell you!!!
Try this!