Cake, Batter, and Bowl

Pesto Goat Cheese Pizza

Main Dishes

When it comes to pizza, I’m a crust girl. It can make or break a pie for me and I will often scavenge up extra pieces of crust from my crazy family members who are somehow not all about the carbs. The very first thing I made with my sourdough starter was this amazing pizza dough, which resulted in the very best crust I’ve ever made! It’s an ideal way to use up some of starter that you would otherwise throw away when you’re feeding your culture, and the resulting crust had the perfect amount of tang and chew. It just baked up beautifully and I felt like I was in a pizzeria!

I love pizza of all kinds – thick, thin, deep dish – I don’t discriminate, but this time went for a nice hearty thick crust and used the entire amount of dough for one pizza. I topped the crust with a generous amount of an arugula and basil pesto blended with a hefty amount of goat cheese. Then I topped it off with lots of chopped tomatoes, mozzarella, and fontina cheese. So good!

Oh, and you can actually buy a sourdough starter if you don’t want to deal with making your own but would like to try a few sourdough recipes at home!

Pesto Goat Cheese Pizza
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

Pesto Goat Cheese Sauce:
1 cup packed arugula (2 ounces)
1/2 cup packed basil (0.7 ounces)
2 tablespoons pine nuts
1/4 cup finely grated pecorino romano cheese
1 garlic clove
1/4 cup olive oil
6 ounces goat cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt

Pizza Assembly:
1 batch of sourdough pizza dough
6 plum tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
1 cup shredded fontina cheese

Directions:
To make the sauce, place arugula, basil, pine nuts, pecorino romano, garlic, and olive oil in a food processor and pulse until smooth, about a 1 minute, scraping down the sides as needed. Put in goat cheese and salt and pulse again until smooth.

To make the pizza, heat oven and a pizza stone to 500˚F. Shape pizza dough into desired shape on a peel heavily dusted with semolina flour. Spread crust evenly with pesto goat cheese sauce and top evenly with tomatoes, mozzarella, and fontina cheese. Bake on the pizza stone at 500˚F for 12 to 15 minutes or until crust is deep golden brown. Cool for 5 minutes and slice into 8 slices.

Nutrition: 384 calories, 14.1g fat, 2.2g fiber, 18.4g protein per slice
Cost: $1.67 per slice

Chicken Parm Eggplant Stacks

Do you enjoy any odd snack foods? I have a thing for croutons. Not only do I go out of my way to scoop as many as is politely possible onto my salad plate at buffets, I also really like snacking on them on their own – yep, right out of the package and usually when I’m...

Gnocchi with Pancetta, Mushrooms, and Gruyere

Apolinaras and I finally checked out Foundry on Elm, a newish hot spot in our neighborhood, on one of our recent date nights. It was packed on the Tuesday evening we went and we could see why after we tried the creative cocktails. Mine was called the Bee’s Knees and...

Avocado Crab Cakes with Crushed Plantain Chips

Dear disappointing Boston restaurant, My hubby and I can rarely resist ordering crab cakes when we eat out, and I was really looking forward to trying your twist on our favorite appetizer during our recent visit to your restaurant. So, you can imagine our...

Mediterranean Couscous

Some things are just meant to be. A couple of weeks ago I was jogging through Harvard Square when I heard someone calling my name. I was disoriented for a second, but when I turned around, I was surprised to see that it was my friend Rashmi from college – crazy, huh –...

Indian Spiced Chicken and Potato Cakes

Whew, what a week! We moved and are finally mostly unpacked, although the guest bedroom is still a bit of a disaster and we need to go shopping for a few accessories (rugs, mirrors, etc). The most important room is completely organized and fully functional already...

Maple Pecan Salmon over Roasted Potato, Apple, and Bacon Hash

I don’t usually buy a lot of produce at Costco, since it’s tough for just the two of us to eat our way through their large packages of fruits and veggies before it all spoils (although I do regularly make an exception of their Brussels sprouts and berries because we...

Mediterranean Portobello Mushroom and Eggplant Stacks

Although I make vegetarian meals a couple times a week, it’s usually because I’m feeling too lazy to really cook. I often whip up simple meals like pizza, tofu fried rice, or breakfast for dinner when I’m super busy, but I rarely put extra effort into making really...

Farfalle with Mushrooms and Goat Cheese Sauce

This pasta has Apolinaras’ name written all over it. I guess you could call him my muse from time to time. He looooves mushrooms and was so happy when I encouraged him to go ahead and put the pricey fresh shitakes in the grocery cart the other day. When I told him I...