Veggie Pizza with Artichoke Hearts
Written by Rachel, Posted in Baking, Cheese, Dinner, Herbs, Lunch, Main Dishes, Pizza, Vegetables, Vegetarian
Things I learned today:
The smoke detector will go off when the oven is at 500F and there’s a pizza stone in there.
Artichokes may be best on pizza.
When I’m tired I type things like, “Almost anything is better when it tastes like garbage.”
I like one of these two lessons. No, two of them. I still can’t stop laughing at the garbage line. And I like that almost anything is better when it tastes like pizza.
Take artichokes for example. Sure, they’re fun to eat steamed, grilled, boiled and then dunked in dip. That’s a good thing. But, I wondered to myself the other day if they might not be even better on pizza.
I think they are. It may be my new go-to way to eat them.
Carrots on the other hand, can be used in about a million different ways, and are delicious in all of them. I mean, you can make them into cake for goodness sake! (And I made a rhyme… cool.) How many things can you eat raw and in a cake and call them both extraordinary?
Rosemary compliments the artichokes and carrots. Lemon zest and juice are added to tomato sauce to make a tangy, citrusy pizza. Everyone is topped with some Gruyère and Parmesan cheese. Yep, you’re welcome.
One of the day’s lessons came when I was following the recipe in Alice Water’s The Art of Simple Food for pizza dough. Her recipe says to pre-heat the oven to 500F with a pizza stone in there. I was gonna prepare the pizza on the pizza peel and slide it onto the hot stone. But, our smoke detector is in our kitchen (since our kitchen is a part of the living room), so it started screaming at me. I know that pizza stones can smoke, but I didn’t want the noise to continue. So, lesson learned. For as long as we live here, with this particular kitchen, I will not be using a pizza stone.
I used a regular pizza pan and it worked out just fine. Plus the noise stopped.
The artichoke hearts were steamed before they went on to the pizza, which makes them tender and delicious. The lemon gives them a good citrusy kick, and the rosemary brings an earthy balance to each slice. The carrots, well, they seem to get along with everyone, so they’re there, in the background, sharing a little bit of sweetness.
All in all, a great new way to use artichokes… or maybe just new to me. You might have been doing this all along. Sometimes I need to catch up. Especially on a day like today when my brain has not brought it’s A game. I blame the olympics. They keep me up way too late.
Happy Eating!
- 3 large artichoke hearts (choke removed), halved (save leaves to steam and eat)
- water
- 1 pizza crust
- 1 C tomato sauce
- 1/2 to 1 t fresh rosemary, chopped
- to taste salt
- to taste pepper
- 1/4 to 1/2 t red pepper flakes
- 1 lemon, zested and juiced
- 1 small carrot, grated
- 3/4 C gruyère cheese, grated
- 1/4 C parmesan cheese, grated
- Pre-heat oven according to your favorite pizza crust recipe.
- Place artichoke hearts in a steamer basket in a pot with about 1″ boiling water in the bottom. Cover and cook for about 15 minutes, or until artichokes are tender. Roughly chop and set aside.
- To make sauce: Combine tomato sauce with rosemary, seasonings, lemon zest and juice. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.
- Roll out pizza dough.
- Top crust with sauce, cheese, veggies, and a little more cheese.
- Bake according to crust recipe until crust is crispy and slightly browned and cheese is melted.
