grilled pizza

The last few days have been miserably hot and humid again. Yesterday I made K whisk the little guy and I off to a restaurant as soon as he got home from work. I wasn't craving any particular food, but was eagerly seeking a blast of cold AC. My seat in the restaurant was directly over a vent. Had I spent the entire day in an air conditioned office I would not have liked this but as I had spent most the day in our hot house I loved that my legs were turning numbingly cold.

Although the rains today did help cool things off I still was not eager to turn on the stove let alone the oven in order to cook dinner tonight. And we have too much delicious farm fresh produce to splurge with a restaurant meal again tonight. So we fired up the grill for a delicious seasonal flatbread.

• fresh basil pesto
• grilled zucchini and yellow summer squash
  
• grilled onions
• and as always passed the hot pepper flakes at the table

Despite my indifference towards zucchini and summer squash this was a tasty pizza. I'll give it an 8.

kale and beet calzone

Farm season is upon us and this beauty contains all farm vegetables! A garlic scape, herb, and nut pesto anchored this calzone which was also filled with scallions, steamed kale and shredded beets. This was a great calzone, a 9! The only thing I'd changed is add more shredded beets. We grilled beets the night before so only had one left to shred into these 2 calzones and it would have been nice to have twice as much.

spinach

I've been having a love/hate relationship with food throughout my pregnancy. The last month or so my stomach has felt much better but food still tastes just so-so and some things like winter squash, sweet potatos, and some cooking greens are paricularly unappealing. Needless to say this means I have not been particularly creative with pizza (or really any meal) lately. But at least now I have the energy to post our pizza. (I noticed a couple pizza's from November on my camera when I uploaded last night's pics that apparently I completely forgot about.)


Last night's pizza

• homemade whole wheat crust
  
• pesto sauce (from our freezer!)
• onions and mushrooms sauteed in olive oil
  
• spinach
• green bell pepper
• and of course, we passed the nutritional yeast and hot pepper flakes at the table
  

I always love the thought of spinach on pizza and often fall for it when ordering at a pizza place. But of course, especially without any cheese on top of the spinach it always turns crispy and flavorless on a restaurant pizza. We had a pizza like this recently that was very disappointing. To keep my spinach moist and flavorful I saute it just until softened before placing it on the dough. Using frozen spinach would work as well.

This pizza was only so-so, we both rated it a 6. The spinach was great but it just needed a stronger flavor to accompany it. I'm thinking that faux feta would be good or perhaps (for a soy free option) some pickled jalapenos.

garlic scape pesto pizza

The pizza I made for dinner today had a garlic scape, basil, and parsley pesto sauce, the last bag of pesto from the freezer. Good thing it is spring and we can soon be expecting fresh herbs and scapes from the farm. Garlic scapes aren't quite in season yet (at least not in New England) but they will be soon and they make a tasty pesto so if you see them in a farmers market be sure to grab some.

The pesto was complimented by thinly sliced red skin potatoes, marinated artichoke hearts, greek olives, and fresh arugula from my garden. Very tasty!

As always, be sure to pass the hot pepper flakes and nutritional yeast.