red, white, and fennel: inauguration day pizza

After Jake's 25+ mile bike ride and my hour and half long yoga class this morning (less taxing, I'll admit), we were hungry. luckily, when I'm not communing with my soul while stretching and bending (my friend Megan calls yoga "tilting," which I think sums it up quite nicely), I sometimes think about my next meal (really, no surprise there). so the sourdough pizza dough I bought at the westside santa cruz farmer's market Saturday morning was on my mind during shavasana and my bike ride home, and I had a master plan for putting it to use. this was handy timing since we needed to use the dough by tomorrow before escorting it to the freezer.

last Wednesday I purchased 8 lovely red and golden beets from the Dirty Girl Produce stand (this time from the downtown santa cruz FM), which I proceeded to roast, slice, and ooh/ahh at without really knowing what I wanted to do with them. a salad? a beet and goat cheese sandwich? a lasagna layer?

a pizza. It ended up becoming a fortuitous leftovers pizza that evolved the further back I looked in the refrigerator. The end result was a Beet and Feta Pizza with Caramelized Onions, Fennel, and Garlic. not bad for a Tuesday lunch on the fly.

Jake and I ate it while watching Obama's speech, and I cried a little because it was so good (the moment in history...and the pizza).




here's what I used:

- fresh sourdough pizza dough
- 8 or so smallish red and golden beets, roasted and sliced
- delicious feta
- 1/2 an onion
- 1 clove of garlic
- about 1 tablespoon or so chopped fennel

here what I did:

- when I got home I cranked the oven up to 400, lightly oiled and floured a cookie sheet and pushed the dough into rectangular pizza shape with my hands, and put the dough in the oven.
- meanwhile, I heated a pan with a generous splash of olive oil and a healthy dollop of butter, sliced the onion, and threw it in to start caramelizing. I minced the garlic clove and sliced the fennel, and reminded myself not to forget about them.
- after about 10 minutes I took out the dough, layered my beets in rows, and crumbled feta abundantly.
- I put the pizza back in the oven, and added the garlic and fennel to the onion (bathing happily in its olive oil and butter bath), tossed them around for a bit and turned the heat off.
- I drizzled the onion and friends onto the pizza, crumbled the rest of the feta on top, and put it all back in the oven for a final bake.
- about 5 minutes later, when the dough was golden brown on the edges I took it out, sprinkled lightly with sea salt (I had been warned that the dough was already salted) and drizzled a touch more olive oil on top. never hurts.