De Ma Cuisine

Monday

17

February 2014

2

COMMENTS

Veggie Pizza with Artichoke Hearts

Written by , Posted in Baking, Cheese, Dinner, Herbs, Lunch, Main Dishes, Pizza, Vegetables, Vegetarian

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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! 

Veggie Pizza with Artichoke Hearts
 
Recipe Type: Pizza, Main Dishes, Vegetarian
Author: Rachel Oberg – De Ma Cuisine
Serves: 2-4
Ingredients
  • 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
Instructions
  1. Pre-heat oven according to your favorite pizza crust recipe.
  2. 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.
  3. To make sauce: Combine tomato sauce with rosemary, seasonings, lemon zest and juice. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.
  4. Roll out pizza dough.
  5. Top crust with sauce, cheese, veggies, and a little more cheese.
  6. Bake according to crust recipe until crust is crispy and slightly browned and cheese is melted.
 
Notes
The sauce is enough for 3-4 pizzas. Freeze any leftovers for next time!

 

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