Roasted Eggplant Pizza

Music: Ben Harper, Welcome to the Cruel World

BJ’s first words after eating a slice: “I think this may be the best pizza we have ever made.” It was pretty dang good. I figured I would have to re-open since my haitus with something really good and it doesn’t get any better than the best pizza we have ever made.

Here’s one reason – we cooked the dough for a while before we put the ingredients on. We usually don’t do this because the toppings require cooking too. But since I roasted the eggplant first, I thought I would give the dough a head start too. Good thought because it turned out with incredible flavor and excellent crispy crust.

First layer = tomato sauce, slices of shallots and garlic, crushed red pepper, and fresh basil leaves. At this point BJ said; “I could just eat that!”

But the layering continued…Kalmata olives.

Roasted eggplant slices.

And cheese. Lots of cheese. Good cheese too. Thick slices of Provolone…mmmmmm.

And all those beautiful layers produced this beauty. So, I apologize avid readers (all two of you, ha!) for my absence, but I promise this makes up for it. Enjoy and lots more posts to come this week and I have stockpiled pics and recipes 🙂

Ingredients:

• 1 small-medium eggplant, ends trimmed and semi peeled (think stripes!)
• EVOO
• S & P
• 1 whole wheat pizza crust
• 1 small can of tomato sauce
• 1 small shallot, sliced into rings
• 3 garlic cloves, sliced
• Crushed red pepper
• 10 – 12 fresh basil leaves
• 1/3 cup Kalmata olives, halved
• 5 slices of Provolone cheese, sliced into 1/2-inch wide strips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. Slice eggplant into 1/4 – 1/2 inch slices. Drizzle slices in EVOO and season with S & P. Place on a cookie sheet and roast at 400 degrees for 15 – 20 minutes, until lightly browned. Halve the large slices. Set aside.
3. Turn oven up to 500 and place pizza stone in oven to warm up. Turn oven back down to 425 after 5 – 10 minutes.
4. Roll dough out to desired shape. Place on pizza stone and drizzle with EVOO. Cook dough 8 – 10 minutes until top just begins to brown and bubble. Remove from oven.
5. Spread tomato sauce over pizza. Season with S & P and crushed red pepper.
6. Arrange slices of shallot and garlic over sauce. Add basil leaves and then scatter olives.
7. Arrange eggplant slices. Lastly, arrange cheese slices on top. Drizzle with EVOO , if desired.
8. Bake pizza for 20 – 25 minutes until cheese id browned on top and bubble. Let rest for 5 minutes and then dig in!