Beet Green and Bacon Pizza

After working from home most of last week while battling a nasty cold, I ended up working pretty late on Friday to catch up and to clear some things off my desk before the long holiday weekend.  I had to pick up my best friend Samantha at South Station later in the evening and I wanted to make something quick and easy using the beet greens that I had in my fridge.  After some discussion with Bret, we settled on making a beet green pizza for dinner because we could use utilize a lot of leftover ingredients in our fridge and pantry.

The only thing that we needed was some pizza dough so I stopped by Whole Foods on my way home from work to pick up some up.  

Usually we like to plan ahead for pizza nights and pick some whole-wheat pizza dough from Flour but this pizza dough was just fine and would work in a pinch.  I generously dusted a cutting board with cornmeal flour and let the pizza dough sit out to bring it to room temperature while we got to work on the rest of the ingredients.

First, I rinsed and dried a handful of beet greens.  The first time that I cooked with beet greens, I found that they were a little wilted by the time I got to work on them.  So I have to thank my friend Robin for giving me the helpful hint to immediately cut off the beet greens when you purchase the beets and store the greens in a tight storage bag.  After a week in the fridge, the beet greens were still crisp and fresh.  I de-stemmed the leaves and got to work coarsely chopping up the beet greens.

Meanwhile Bret got to work slicing up a few strips of bacon.  When he was done slicing the bacon, he fried the pieces in a skillet.  When the chopped bacon was crispy, he placed them on a paper towel lined plate to let them cool and for the paper towel to soak up some of the bacon grease.

Using the remaining bacon fat, Bret sauteed up the chopped beet greens, along with four cloves of minced garlic.  When this was cooked down, we placed the bowl in the fridge to help cool the beet green and garlic mixture down.

Bret then got to work on the pizza dough.  We finally got to use our Chinese wooden rolling stick that we purchased at the suggestion of Chef Matt Barros from Myers & Chang.  This made all the difference as it helped us roll out a perfect pizza circle, which we hadn't be able to accomplish with a normal rolling pin.  While Bret worked on the pizza dough, I shredded about a quarter of a block of leftover Cabot's Seriously Sharp Cheddar Cheese. 

Then we were onto the fun part - putting together the pizza!  First we placed the tomato sauce on the pizza.  We decided to use a bottle of Bertolli Marinara with Burgundy Wine.  

I gently spooned some onto the pizza dough.

Next up was a layer of cheese, which was a combination of the Seriously Sharp cheddar and pre-shredded mild yellow cheddar cheese that we also had leftover in our fridge.

Then we added the sauteed beet green and garlic mixture and some more of the two cheeses.  

Finally we topped the pizza with the chopped bacon and the remaining shredded cheese.

We placed the pizza in the oven at 400 degrees for about fifteen minutes.  I wasn't familiar with this dough so I kept checking it intermittently to make sure that the pizza was cooking properly.  I didn't want under-cooked pizza dough but I also didn't want it to burn!

While the pizza was cooking, I put together a very simple side salad.  I had generously received a huge shipment that day of Olivia's Organics salads to try out and I couldn't wait to break into the Asian Salad Mix.

The Asian Salad contains a blend of spinach, red chard, mizuna, frisee, tango, and arugula.  I topped it with sliced cucumbers and gorgeous grape tomatoes.

By the time I was done prepping the salad and setting the table, the pizza was ready and it looked gorgeous!  I had to remind myself to stay patient while I let it to cool before slicing it up.

The pizza had some really fantastic flavors from the really lovely marinara sauce to the salty bacon and the garlicky beet greens.  Of course, I also loved the combination of textures from the gooey mixed cheddar cheese to the crispy bacon and the chewy pizza crust.  

And it was nice to have a simple salad to accompany the pizza, which was perfect for a hot Friday evening.

The beet green and bacon pizza was definitely the most interesting pizza I've ever made.  I'm happy to continue using my farmers market purchases in different ways.

What ingredients do you like to use when making homemade pizza?

Hot Pepper & Bourbon Glazed Chicken Breast with Pea Tendril & Radish Salad

After a week off for our Florida vacation, I was happy to return home to my first Greenologist farmer's market home delivery waiting for me.  I was excited to get back into the kitchen on Saturday to cook something healthy and I couldn't wait to use some of my fresh local ingredients such as the hot pepper jam, radishes, and pea leaves.

I thawed a few boneless chicken breasts and decided to make a simple baked chicken breasts.  The chicken was simply seasoned with fresh cracked salt and pepper and put in the oven at 400 for a few minutes for each side.  While the chicken was cooking, B made a simple glaze using the Silverbrook Farm hot pepper jam.  I tasted a bit of the jam and it had a nice combination of sweet and spicy. 

To thin out the jam a bit for the glaze, B added some of his favorite bourbon - Maker's Mark.  We both thought that bourbon would add a nice element to this glaze.

When the chicken was mostly cooked through, he added the glaze to the chicken and broiled it for a few minutes before turning it over and glazing the other side for additional broiling.  Since the jam obviously contained sugar in it, we didn't want the glaze in the oven too long with fears of it burning.

While B worked on the glaze, I got to work on the pea leaves (also known as pea shoots or pea tendrils).  I have actually never tasted or cooked with pea leaves but I ordered them anyway because I want the farmer's market delivery service to be an excuse for me to try working with something new every week. 

We did some research and pea leaves are pretty versatile.  Since it was warm out, we decided to use them as greens for a simple salad.  I also sliced up a gorgeous bunch of local radishes.

I cubed some leftover Cabot Seriously Sharp cheddar cheese which I received from Cabot at the Boston Wine Exchange Blogger event that I co-hosted a few weeks ago.  On a side note, here is a great re-cap of the blogger event by Meghan, who co-hosted the event with me. 

The salad was bright and vibrant.  Although we have plenty of already-made dressing on hand, we decided to make a simple vinaigrette using our favorite white champagne balsamic vinegar that we picked up at LeRoux Kitchen during out visit to Portland, Maine in March. 

The chicken had a nice sweet and spicy glaze to it but the sharp taste of the radishes and pea leaves help break up the sweetness.  The cheddar cheese helped mellow out the radishes when it got to be a bit too sharp.

In addition to being bright in both flavor and color, I was happy that our dinner was quick, simple, healthy and made using mostly local ingredients.  I'm looking forward to cooking throughout the summer months using more local ingredients.

Tell me, what have you recently made using local ingredients?