Friday, December 19, 2008

Mexican Black Bean and Spinach Pizza...

Does anyone else do, or have you started, your own Friday Night Pizza yet? I'm glad we began doing this a few months ago... while it helps to know what you are going to have at the beginning of each weekend, it is fun to pick and choose what topping we are going to do! For this week's pizza, we decided this Mexican Black Bean and Spinach Pizza was going to be on tap.

I hope you've given the whole-wheat pizza dough we have been using a try - it is so simple and such a pleasant dough to work with. We buzzed it together again tonight - when it had rested and rose a bit, I easily stretched it out to a rough circle to start this pizza. Because we wanted the crust to be on the crisper side, we gave it a pre-bake before topping.

Rather than a tomato-y sauce, we spread our crust with a mixture of coarsely mashed black beans, onions, garlic, cumin and chili powder. I softened the onions first since Jeff isn't a fan of them crunchy, but you could skip that step if their texture doesn't matter to you. On top of that went spoonfuls of salsa (extra hot for us!), followed by spinach and chopped fresh cilantro. A drizzle of cayenne pepper sauce and a blend of cheeses were scattered on top before the crust was slid back onto the stone to finish cooking through.

This hefty pizza was decidedly filling, thanks to the beans and spinach - pre-baking the thin crust ensured the bottom would hold up against the toppings, but if you would like a bit more chew, up the dough recipe to the full pound version. I would definitely suggest using a very flavorful salsa that is at least around medium heat - due to the beans and spinach, anything less and I'm afraid the salsa layer would just fade away!

10 comments:

  1. Hey Joe,

    Yes, we've been celebrating "Pizza Friday" for years. I have to say ours aren't as varied - we have just a couple of dough recipes we like, one from Todd English, one from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, and our current favorite, a recipe gleaned from the www.pizzamaking.com discussion boards.

    We usually do a traditional tomato sauce and mozzarella pizza with toppings, but a couple other favorites involve pesto and a mixture of cheeses with roasted red peppers and black olives, and tapenade with feta and artichoke hearts. This summer we did smoked mozzarella from a dairy we toured and garlic scapes from the farmers' market.

    Love the blog!

    Michelle

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  2. There is nothing like homemade pizza. We love to make our own dough too, and it's so economical. I love the idea of black beans mash for the "sauce." What a great way to get more fiber and protein into pizza. I'll have to try this!

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  3. Joe I don't really make pizza but I am totally intrigued by this. Looks fantastic!

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  4. This looks amazing!

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  5. Michelle - I'll have to look into those other recipes and see how they compare!

    TTFN - Thanks!

    Kristen - Yeah, the stats on this pizza are pretty good!

    Laura - Great! That is what we try to do... get people interested in recipes they might not otherwise try!

    Anna - Thank you!

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  6. OMG.....

    Quinn

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  7. Quinn - I hope that was a good OMG!

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  8. It was a very good OMG......

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