homemade pesto and local pizza!

I made a batch of pesto today with basil from my 4 plants and several handfuls from a friend's garden plot. I sadly had to use all of my basil right away because the basil blight had attacked my little plants, causing the leaves to yellow. I composted all 4 plants and salvaged what leaves I could. Since I'm in the midst of moving, my food processor is still in Ohio and my mortar and pestle are in a box somewhere, so I wasn't sure how exactly I was going to make the pesto. I happened up on this recipe however while googling that uses neither processor nor m&p. I used my own basil/cheese etc proportions, but I did try the chopping technique. It took a long time and I can honestly say that I can't taste a significant difference from how it would be in a food processor, but it worked just fine and was quite tasty pesto.

I decided to use the pesto to make a pizza! On Thursday I picked up a 1.5lb ball of fresh mozzarella at the Westside Farmer's Market in Ann Arbor and yesterday I bought a couple of local tomatoes at the People's Food Co-op. All ingredients that demand pizza, right?

so here's the freshly made pesto spread on the crust (I used the KAF recipe).sliced two medium tomatoes from the Co-op.added the mozzarella. (I was actually rather disappointed w/ this cheese. The farm packed it in way too much salt so even after rinsing it the cheese was way too salty. The outside was mushy and the inside was dense. It didn't string/tear the way mozzarella should. Sad face. But I chopped it up and it did the trick!)The finished pie fresh out o' the oven! It was quite delicious.

pizza!

A bunch of folks came over for pizza one night so that I could try out my new pizza stone (thanks Lauren!!). I made the usual sourdough whole wheat crust (which always seems a little dense for me, but I haven’t yet played with the recipe).

We made two pizzas, each one with different toppings on each half. The first had a slightly spicy red sauce with mushrooms, olives, onions, spinach, and fresh mozzarella on one half and red sauce, onions, spinach, mozzarella and parmesan cheese on the other.The second had an olive oil and garlic “sauce”, shallots, mushrooms, roasted red peppers, garlic, parmesan and blue cheese on one half and the same on the other side with the addition of spinach and olives.

Both pizzas were delicious! But I discovered a little late in the process that I needed something to function as a pizza peel to get the pizzas in and out of the oven. I ended up using an upside down cutting board, which worked okay. My friend Candace (who is an amazing cook) has had success using just a piece of cardboard, so I may try that next time. The pizza stone definitely made the crusts crispier and kept the oven hotter. I’m excited about using it more in the future.