Pizza!!

Pizza is so easy. There are gluten-free crusts for those who can't do wheat. For me, there's Whole Food's pizza department, that has crusts they can roll out for you, with cornmeal on it and everything. Of course you could make your own, and I'm sure it's relatively easy, but when you have 1/2 hour to prepare dinner for 4 people, well, it just didn't work for me on Saturday.

Fig Goat Cheese Pizza

• pizza dough from Whole Foods (or the like) -rolled out.
• olive oil
• roasted garlic
• goat cheese (I just had some goat cheese crumbles in a little tub, but any will do)
• mozzarella cheese- shredded
• figs (since figs are out of season now I used "Fig Galaxy" from Mountain Fruit Co.- it's like a jar of figs w/o the skin. Or like a thick fig jam)
• arugula (baby arugula is the best- but any will do)

A pizza stone is the best way, in my opinion, to bake a pizza. The crust comes out crispy, but not burnt. If you can go this way, preheat your pizza stone (while the oven is preheating) to 450 degrees.
While the stone is heating, form your pizza dough on some kind of sheet that has no lip. I use a thin cookie sheet I have that has no lip on 3 sides. Make sure if your pizza dough doesn't already have cornmeal on the bottom you put some on the cookie sheet. Get the finer cornmeal, not polenta or course corn meal.
Brush the entire now-pizza-shaped dough with olive oil (all the way to the edge!), then smush some roasted garlic up and spread it around. It doesn't have to be all over... just as much as you'd like. I've also used the oil from a jar of sun-dried tomatoes instead.
Sprinkle on some mozzarella. I'm not too liberal with this cheese. I just give a uniform light covering... but be as liberal as you like.
Next, spoon the fig (or lay the fresh figs) in glops all over, making sure each bite would have some fig. Spread the goat cheese crumbles around in a similar fashion. Then top with a bunch of baby arugula. It will cook downand get kind of crispy... so you can be pretty liberal.
Pull the rack with the pizza stone out and (this is where it gets tricky) wiggle the pizza from the cookie sheet onto the pizza stone. The first time you do this you might have some trouble, but just be able to laugh at yourself and have a misshapen pizza.
Bake until the crust is browned... about 15 minutes or so.

So... some other ideas for pizza toppings? Besides the standard?
How about Pear, Gorgonzola and caramelized onions?
Or one of my favorite combos: charred eggplant, roasted red pepper, caramelized onions, wild mushrooms and artichoke hearts.
Add a meat to any of these, like chicken or prosciutto.
Maybe a sweet pizza with brown sugar and peaches??
The possibilities are endless.

Farmer's Market Find

I went to the local farmer's market this past weekend. I found a lot of normal stuff, like kale and beets and apples. I also found some more... exotic fare. I got some wood sorrel (citrusy leaves that look like clover), some miner's lettuce (also called purslane, it's delicate and full of vitamin c), sunflower sprouts and the pièces de résistance : fiddlehead ferns! But what to do with them?
You can saute them or boil them. But I felt like some soup!



Fiddlehead Fern Soup

• 1-1/2 cups finely chopped fiddlehead ferns (make sure if you forage for these yourself you pick only edible ones! The farmer's market or grocery store is a safer bet.) Before chopping, cut off the dry ends and if there's any brown papery stuff: peel it off.
• 2 TBSP butter
• 2 low-sodium vegetable boullion cubes
• 1 large shallot-finely chopped
  
• 2-4 spring garlic bulbs- thinly sliced (also called baby garlic, green garlic or scapes- they are very young garlic and look more like a green onion with a little fatter bulb. I use the white bulb part and some of the green)
• 3 cups 2% milk
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 2 tsp or so truffle oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a large saucepan and add the boullion, stirring until well incorporated.
Add the fiddleheads, shallots and spring garlic and sauté for 10-12 minutes, until everything is nice and soft. Undercooking fiddleheads can lead to illness, so give them a good long sauté.
Turn the heat down a bit and add the milk. Stir to incorporate and bring to a simmer. Add the salt, pepper and truffle oil and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add the cream and let it heat up, stirring.
I mixed it all together with a stick-blender at the end, but it's not really necessary. You could also put it in the blender if you felt like it.
The taste is really good... like cream of asparagus soup, but a bit different.