Roasted Beet Pizza

Okay, bear with me here.  These photos aren't great, in fact I'm afraid to show you what the whole pizza looked like.  I had a bugger of a time getting it off the (floured AND cornmealed) counter.  I still haven't bought that pizza peel I've been thinking about.  It would have made things a lot easier and prettier.  Another problem with these photos is that you can't see that those gorgeous, roasted, golden beets are nestled between a layer of salty feta cheese and savoury thinly sliced shallots.  Oh!  And then the whole thing is drizzled with honey.  It's amazing.  I couldn't hold out until the next time I made this recipe to take a better picture.  I had to get the word out there now, just in case there was a chance that even one of you would make this for an upcoming holiday party.

Roasted Beet Pizza
Origin: Cooking Light Magazine

Notes:  I strongly suggest you buy a pizza stone if you bake a lot of pizza or flatbreads at home.  You can even buy premade, uncooked pizza dough, and the pizza stone will take it over the top, giving you a crunchy, chewy, bubbly, charred finished product.  They are great.  I have included some links for pizza dough recipes below.  I experiment with a new one every time I make pizza and I haven't committed to one yet.  The toppings are the star here, so you can't go wrong with the dough.  And as I mentioned, feel free to buy premade but uncooked dough.  I sometimes buy portions of uncooked frozen pizza dough from my local grocery store, it's found in a freezer in the bakery section (with frozen desserts and breads).


Ingredients:

1-2 golden beets
uncooked pizza dough, enough for a 10 inch pizza
1  teaspoon olive oil
1/2  cup crumbled feta cheese
1/4  cup thinly sliced shallots
1/4  teaspoon  kosher salt
1  teaspoon  honey

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Prepare beets, leave the root and 1 inch of the stem intact, scrub clean with a brush.  Wrap beets in foil (I drizzle a little olive oil over the beets and season them with salt and pepper before roasting).  Bake for 40-60 minutes or until tender.  Remove from oven and cool.  Trim ends and peel the skin off of the beets, slice thinly.

Increase oven temperature to 500 degrees.  Position an oven rack in the lowest position.  Place a pizza stone on lowest rack and preheat pizza stone for 30 minutes before baking pizza.

Prepare your dough.  Roll, push, pull, toss or prod the dough into a 10-12 inch circle (or square, or rectangle...).  Gently brush oil over pizza dough.  Arrange cheese, beet slices, and shallots evenly over dough, leaving a 1/2 inch border. Slide dough onto preheated pizza stone, using a spatula as a guide, (this is where I ran into trouble.  If you don't have a pizza peel, I would suggest rolling your dough and preparing all of your toppings, and when you are ready to bake, put the bare pizza dough onto the hot pizza stone and then very quickly and carefully put your toppings on).

Bake at 500° for 8 minutes or until crust is golden. Remove from pizza stone. Sprinkle with salt, and drizzle with honey. Cut into wedges.


Pizza Dough Recipe Links

Cooking Light Magazine's Basic Pizza Dough (from this recipe)
Jim Lahey's No Knead Pizza Dough
Smitten Kitchen's Really Simple Pizza Dough
101 Cookbooks' Best Pizza Dough Ever Recipe