Grilled Eggplant and Pesto Pizza with Cherry Tomatoes Marinated in Balsamic Vinegar and Extra Virgin Olive Oil

I am not going to lie to you.

This may change the way you feel about eggplant.

You may even actually love it.

And maybe you’ll even have the urge to fist bump me, because yes, I knew all along that eggplant is absolutely delicious when grilled.

While this pizza (as most things written about on LLN) is easy to assemble, it does take a bit time to prep the ingredients; especially when you don’t own an outdoor grill.

If you do own an outdoor grill, I implore you to invite me over so I can steal borrow it, because my stove top grill pan makes me suffer my own shining half way through the process.

But back to speaking truths.

Roo hates eggplant. Or supposedly hated it because he loves this pizza. He even stated yesterday it might be one of his favorites.

<insert surprised Scooby Doo noise>

But Roo never stood a chance. It’s composed of some of his favorite things: 1) pizza, 2) pesto, 3) cheese, 4) pizza

The boy loves pizza, true story.

And until last night, he did not love eggplant.

When I’ve previously mentioned my feelings for the bulbous purple plant, he would counter that it was mooshy and flavorless. I would say it was prepared wrong, but he would just shake his head, refusing to let it cross our threshold. Tofu was the only other food he hated more.  And peas. Sad.

I couldn’t really relate to Roo’s hatred for eggplant. I’ve always liked it, and maybe because I grew up eating it, I’ve never had a chance to dislike it.

I remember several fall nights where my mom would roast it in the oven, only to toss it with a bit of soy sauce and serve it as a side to salmon. Eggplant is one of her favorites, and when I told her Roo hated eggplant, she questioned my choice in men.  But this isn’t news. She’s always questioned my choice in men (my ex lived on a diet of Cheez-it Party Mix).

This week though, we received an eggplant almost the size of Evil Monkey,

from our CSA, and I knew we had no choice but to have it for dinner.

And how was I going to introduce eggplant to Roo?

The gateway meal: pizza.  (And in case you wanted to know, the gateway meat for vegetarians is bacon. Fact.)

With fall around the corner, I’ve been craving nothing but carbs.  Perhaps it’s my body wanting to prepare for winter hibernation, but all I can think about is bread. Warm bread.

A crusty pizza with silky eggplant, deep in flavor from the char from the grill, only to be countered by a bite from pesto, was exactly what I needed.  And now that I’ve “ripped off the band aid,” that is conquering Roo’s dislike for one of the “No no no I don’t like it!” list, I’m a little bit more confident in convincing him that tofu isn’t all that bad.  Somehow I don’t think telling him it’s “cheese” is going to be the way.

This is definitely a make-it-as-you-go kind of pizza. I haven’t listed the exact quantities of the ingredients, because maybe you like a super cheesy pizza compared to me. Or, you want a super thin layer of pesto because you want to really taste the grilled eggplant. Have some fun with it and make this dish your’s!

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Ingredients

Store bought frozen pizza dough from Whole Foods (it’s surprisingly good!), or the no-knead dough recipe I always go to

Flour (to roll out you dough with)

Store bought pesto, or the basil pesto recipe that I like (pesto freezes wonderfully so if you have leftovers, freeze it for later!)

One eggplant, sliced thinly (I slice it about a quarter inch thick)

Olive oil

Sea salt

Fresh mozzarella

Goat cheese (optional, but so so good)

*The cherry tomatoes on the side/piled on top of the pizza upon serving is also optional, but Roo and I really enjoyed this “hey these are about to go bad, let’s use them!” ingredient

Cherry tomatoes, cut in half

A good balsamic vinegar

Extra virgin olive oil, if you have it, or just use a good mild tasting olive oil

More sea salt

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Equipment

Two medium sized mixing bowls (One if you’re not making the cherry tomatoes marinated in balsamic vinegar and olive oil)

A spatula (a spoon will also work)

Tongs (to flip your grilled eggplant with)

A plate (to set your grilled eggplant aside on)

A grill (and I’m jealous of you if you have it) or a stove top grill pan (that I have and secretly loathe)

A pizza stone (if you have it) or a baking sheet that can withstand the heat of a 475F oven

A rolling pin (if you have it) or a wine bottle will also work

Parchment paper (not really necessary if you own a pizza peel, but I don’t, so that’s how I slide the pizza onto the stone), or a pizza peel

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Place your oven rack to the middle position in the oven. Place your pizza stone on the oven rack and preheat the oven to 475F.

If you’re going to use your cherry tomatoes, put them in one of your mixing bowls and sprinkle with a bit of salt.  Add a couple tablespoons of balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil.  Toss to combine (I used my hands).  Set aside to marinate.  (Trust me, the longer you let them sit, the better!)

Turn on your grill and set to “medium.” If you don’t have a grill like me, place your grill pan on your burner over medium high heat.

Throw the thinly sliced pieces of eggplant into a medium sized mixing bowl. Throw a good pinch of salt in there and a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Toss the ingredients with your hands (or a spatula). When all the eggplant is coated, start grilling.

Grill the eggplant slices until they are tender and have grill marks on both sides.  Set the grilled eggplant aside.

Roll out the pizza dough on a floured surface, to your desired thickness. I like a super thin crust, but if you’re a thick crust person, work away.

Spread the pesto on top of the pizza dough with your spatula (or a spoon if you don’t have one).

Lay the slices of grilled eggplant on top.

Shred pieces of fresh mozzarella up and scatter over the pizza. I like to make it so that at least every slice has one bite of mozzarella.

When the pizza is arranged to your liking, bake in the oven (on your baking sheet or pizza stone) for about ten to fifteen minutes, until the crust is golden brown (or deeply browned if that’s your thing) and the cheese is bubbling (and hopefully also a bit browned).

Remove the pizza from the oven and crumble bits of goat cheese on top (optional).

Upon serving, spoon a couple of marinated cherry tomatoes on top, for a delicious, juicy bite! (Also optional)

Caramelized Cayenne Onion Pizza

At the beginning of May I started to freak out about the impending doom of turning 30.  Something inside of me felt like I needed change.  There was this desire to get out of the comfortable sloth that I had grown used to.  I wanted the athleticism I had when I was going to yoga nearly everyday.

One thing my mother told me in my early twenties was, “A lot of single people are skinny because they want to get laid.”  (My mother is very open.)  At the time I shrugged it off, but recently, especially when I have to dress for an evening out, I find myself remembering what she said.  In the past couple of months, I’ve gone from walking to Harvard Square for a yoga class every night after work, to sporadically going during my lunch break once I moved in with Roo, to making dinner after work and watching three hours of Netflix every night.

The only conclusion I’ve made from this is that I’m happy.  Because I’m happy, I cook.  As a colleague once mentioned to another about me, “she must really be in love because all she does now is cook.”

When Roo and I had a major argument back in October, I had no desire to go into the kitchen.  Making something for dinner that night was especially painful, because the normalcy of Roo coming in while I’m cooking to say “that smells delicious,” or try to grab whatever was simmering, didn’t happen.  Strangely enough, without that positive reinforcement of cooking for someone that I cared for, made me uncomfortable, and almost unbearable, to be working in the kitchen.

I am not saying that every person who’s in a happy relationship gains weight.  Nor am I saying that all singles are “skinny bitches.”  This is just what I’ve observed for myself.  Roo and I have both gained weight since we’ve moved in together.  I’ve gained about ten pounds, and I think Roo has gained maybe twenty.  And I’ll admit, when I first moved in with Roo, I may have gone overboard.  I was so happy to be living with him in our apartment, that all I wanted was to be in the kitchen and bake “breakfast cakes,” crusty loaves of bread, brown pancetta in a pan, and sear scallops in butter (mmm butter) – popping them into my mouth as soon as they caramelized.

But with that love of butter (and other not-so-good-for-you things) came on the high cholesterol numbers for Roo, and a couple pounds for both of us to carry around as well.  I don’t think it helped that Roo has a habit of eating until he feels almost sick, and I go back to the kitchen to grab a slice of cake to have with tea around 9 at night, even though I’m full.

I feel as if this blog is at a crossroads.  I wanted to fill it with a lot of the recipes (mostly baked goods) I’ve made over the past year, but now I feel as if it’s in the upswing of trying to be healthy.  I don’t want it to be a “health food blog,” but as of late, my recipes have been technically healthier.  I guess where I’m trying to steer it now is making food that’s delicious but not laden with butter, eggs, or cream.  I still want it to be known for wholesome ingredients, without chemical substitutions.

So with that, dear reader (ie Me), I have a recipe that I absolutely adore that is a great replacement for the original. I love, I mean, love Alsatian Pizza.

A pizza with a cream base and caramelized onions and bacon?!?  Amazing.  But with a couple adjustments, this pizza is one that I make probably once a month for Roo and I, and I love it even more than the original.  It has the heat that I always desire with every dish (I’m addicted) and just lots and lots of caramelized onions.  Perhaps more than any recipe has suggested, but I don’t care!

Give me those onions!

Adapted from Food and Wine

For One Medium Pizza (about the size of a pizza stone, sometimes if I stretch it out really thin, it hangs off of the stone)

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Ingredients

Pizza Dough *You can use the no-knead recipe from Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois that I adore (halve it for two medium – by American standards – thin crust pizzas).  If you intend to use all the dough (from the half recipe), you can double the ingredients below (or freeze the second half for later use).  Whole Foods (under $2!) hasn’t let me down for any dinner parties I’ve thrown where I just didn’t have the time to make my own.  Their pizza dough is also enough for two medium very thin crust pizzas.*

2 – 3 large onions thinly sliced into rounds (I love caramelized onions!)

1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper (I love heat.  If you don’t, start small, maybe a 1/4 teaspoon.  And if you’re really nervous, 1/8.  But I think you should try!)

3 tablespoons olive oil

1/4 cup sour cream (I used low fat)

1/4 cup ricotta (I used part skim)

salt to taste (I used Diamond Fine Sea Salt)

Flour (to work with the dough)

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Equipment

A sharp knife

1 small bowl

1 medium – large sauté pan

A spatula

A pizza stone (You can use a baking sheet)

Parchment paper (or a pizza peel)

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Set the pizza stone/baking sheet on the oven rack in the middle of the oven.  Preheat the oven to at least 450F (I crank it up as high as our’s will go without broiling, ~500F).

In a small bowl, mix the ricotta and sour cream together with a spatula, until somewhat smooth.  Add salt to taste.  Set aside.  *If you want super smooth, I would recommend doing this in a food processor, but it’s not necessary.  Really.*

Add the olive oil to a medium – large sauté pan and turn the burned on to a medium-high heat.  When the oil starts to shimmer, add the onions, ground cayenne pepper and salt to taste.  Always be sure to taste what you’re making, and it’s especially important here.  These are the main part of the pizza and you’re going to want to love them.  Start with a little cayenne, cook the onions down a bit.  Taste it.  Is it hot enough?  Or in my case, not hot enough?

Cook the onions until caramelized, about nine minutes (it may be more or less with your oven burner, so keep an eye on it), stirring occasionally.  When golden brown and practically melting (you’ll get it once you see it), remove from heat and set aside.

Place a square of parchment paper about the size of your pizza stone (or baking sheet) down on your working surface.  Throw a bit of flour onto the parchment paper, and then your dough.  Stretching out the dough with your hands, trying to make it as large and as thin as possible.  I’ll admit I’ve grabbed the rolling pin when I just don’t have the patience to stretch out the dough by hand.  Yes, I said it.

When the pizza reaches your desired thickness, spread the ricotta and sour cream mixture over the dough.  Some people like a definite border so that they can see a crust.  Do what you like, this is your pizza!  Sometimes I forget to have a crust.  It’s true.

Add the onions over the ricotta and sour cream mixture.  I like to add it in little mounds, so that every bite is a super spicy sweet bite.  But, again, this is your pizza, spread them out thinly if you want.

Open the oven, and then taking the parchment paper (or using your peel to sweep up the pizza), place it on your pizza stone (parchment and all)/baking sheet.

*I’ve never baked a pizza on a baking sheet, but my worry would be that if you’re not using parchment paper, that the dough may stick.  Try adding some olive oil onto a paper towel and very carefully (preferably with an oven gloved hand) wipe the oil onto the hot baking sheet, and then set the dough onto it.*

I like a very brown crust, and at ~500F it takes about ten minutes to get there.  If you’re baking at 450, it should be golden brown at around twelve minutes.  But, as usual, keep an eye on it.  My oven is incredibly small, and runs really hot, so your oven may make me into a liar.

I do like at the five minute marker to remove the parchment paper from underneath the pizza, just yanking it out like the old school magic trick of removing a table cloth from under a set table.  I’m convinced that the direct contact with the stone makes the crust crispier, but I’ve never left the parchment paper in to be proven otherwise.

Bitter Greens Pizza

It was Halloween weekend and a six hour drive from Boston to Philly.  The drive down was kind of perfect.  We were on our way to a wedding (his friends) and it had been a while since we took a mini-vacation for ourselves.  We talked about prior relationships, about how we love Coldplay’s album, A Rush of Blood to the Head, and we laughed about embarrassing childhood memories.  To couple that with stopping at practically every Starbucks we encountered, the six hours in a car wasn’t so bad.

Yet, with each state line we crossed, I became more anxious.  I had never met his best mates from college before, so I started thinking the usual “crazy.”

“Will they like me?”
“Will they think I’m pretty?”
“Will they think I’m funny?”
“What about their girlfriends!?!”

I’ll be the first to admit it, women secretly compete with each other.  There may be some ladies out there, completely adamant that we do not. But trust me, we do.

When we meet each other for the first time, we compare ourselves to each other.  First, it’s looks, then the list can vary amongst women.  With me it’s: career, personality, clothing, then it gets incredibly trivial (if it hasn’t already), nitpicking at things like, “wow, your laugh is REALLY annoying. Stop finding everything I say funny. Stop.”  I mean, who hates someone that finds you funny?  I do, if you laugh sounds like a bag of wailing cats.

Strangely enough, I didn’t exactly hate my time there.  I actually had a bit of fun, and ending up liking all of the wives.  The girlfriends on the other hand, not so much.  Perhaps it’s because they all knew each other prior to the wedding, but as I explained to Roo, they all had, “bitch face.”  And to my surprise, he later admitted, “yeah, it’s true.”

But it wasn’t the girlfriends that ruined our weekend.  It was something that was my fault, but in reality (after talking about it a day later), a giant misunderstanding between the both of us.

It was the night of the reception, and a bit of alcohol was consumed.  I had said something rude to Roo before we went to bed, and unfortunately, it was blown out of proportion.  Way, way out of proportion.

The car ride home was utter hell.  He didn’t talk to me. The whole six hours.

I was pretty much convinced due to my lack of self-editing that we were going to break up.  It made me angry, then sad, and then we were back in Boston; pulling into the Whole Foods so I could buy groceries to make dinner with.

I ran inside, not knowing what I was going to cook.  I randomly grabbed a few things, and before I knew it, we were back in our apartment.  He was on the couch, and I was sitting at the kitchen table looking at a paper bag filled with god-know’s-what I grabbed.

Perhaps it was the mood I was in, perhaps it’s because we had the whole weekend to indulge and my liver was crying out for antioxidants, but what I whipped up that night was Bitter Greens Pizza.

It’s a dish that I saw on Anthony Bourdain’s show, No Reservations.  He spoke about this spinach pizza (go to 11:30) that was made by Jim Lahey at Co.  At Co they call it the “Popeye,” but to me it will always be, “Bitter Greens.”

It was exactly what I wanted: bite from the spinach, a little salty from the pecorino, but coated your tongue nicely with that melty gooey mozzarella.  And when you’re sad, really really sad, it’s kind of perfect to make you feel just a little bit better.

Adapted from Jim Lahey at Co

I’m going to be the first to tell you that I have no shame that I buy pizza dough at Whole Foods.  It’s under $2, and I make two pizzas (about 10″ each) with it.  I have made pizza dough before (courtesy of Artisan Bread In Five Minutes a Day), but I just didn’t taste the difference.

For those of you who would like a homemade pizza dough recipe, this one is great.  But, I’m a bit lazy.  And when I want pizza, I want it now.  Whole Foods pizza dough makes me live that dream.

Toppings:

Olive Oil

2 cloves of garlic thinly sliced

1/4 cup swiss cheese grated (I use Jarlsberg)

1/8 cup pecorino cheese grated

1/8 cup mozzarella grated (I used low moisture since it’s what I had in my fridge)

1/4 pound fresh spinach with tough stems removed (about a half a bag of the pre-washed spinach you find at your local grocer)

Put your pizza stone in the oven on the middle rack.  Preheat your oven to as high as it’ll go before broil.  On our’s it’s 550F.

Throw a half handful of all purpose flour down on a square of parchment paper that will be about the size of your pizza stone.  If you have a pizza peel, prepare your pizza on that.  Otherwise, if you keep forgetting to purchase a peel until you make you pizza, like I do, parchment paper it is.

Add a couple splashes of olive oil onto the dough.  Stretch out the dough manually with your hands.  I find that working the dough this way results in 1) not having the pizza dough fall on the ground when I attempt to throw it, 2) it doesn’t get overworked.  Note: your pizza will NOT be round.  But that’s ok.  Your goal is to make the crust as thin as you can be stretching it out manually.  According to Jim Lahey, 12 is the magic number (skip ahead to 13:40).

Arrange your swiss cheese, pecorino, mozzarella around your pizza so that with every bite you get a combination of all three cheeses.  Throw your slices of garlic about your pizza as well, with the same principle in mind.  Top your pizza with the spinach.  It’ll look like a giant mound of leaves on top, but it’ll wilt down after spending time in your hot hot oven.

Slide your pizza onto your stone in your oven.  If you’re using parchment paper, bake for five minutes, then remove the parchment paper from underneath the pizza so the stone.  By that time, the dough will have partially baked and will release easily from the parchment paper.  You want to remove the paper so that the dough can form and excellent crust by baking on the stone.  Bake for an additional five minutes.

If you’re not using a stone, bake for a total of ten minutes.

Around the ten minute mark, I start peeking into my oven to see where the crust and toppings are in the brown/burn stage.  I like it to be super brown (ie almost burned), it takes about an additional minute after the first peek for the pizza to be done.  But your tastes (and oven) might be drastically different from mine.  Keep an eye on your pizza as it will bake quickly at this temperature, and take it out when it reaches your liking of crust color.

Place on a cutting board to cool.  Cut with a serrated bread knife (seriously, who needs pizza wheels?) in a sweeping motion and serve.

I highly recommend eating the pizza by folding it in half so that the spinach is surrounded by cheesy garlicky goodness.  But you may think that’s not classy.  This is Liz Lemon Nights.  We’re classy like wine out of a box.  And night cheese.