There are days when I want nothing more than to create a beautiful pizza pie, pretending that one day I’ll have my own pizza café where I can wow my guests with unusual combinations of toppings that they couldn’t imagine should be on a pizza. Yesterday was one of those days. I worked all morning at Caribou Coffee and built an appetite for the pizza I was creating in my mind: Roasted Vegetable Pizza.
I began by heading next door to the Cub store and poking around for vegetable that would taste good roasted. I’d have preferred some beets on my pizza, but my wife doesn’t like beets, so I went with Yukon Gold Potato as the root vegetable. Next time, I’ll try half the pizza with beets, like a beet salad, if you will. I also chose a red onion, an orange bell pepper, shiitake mushrooms, and two small zucchinis. I though I had garlic at home, so I didn’t get any of that, but I did pick up some arugula to put on the pizza after it cooked.
Then, one my way home, I realized that I hadn’t actually purchased any cheese, nor did I think that we had any in the refrigerator, so I stopped at the Cub on my way home in Cottage Grove. I don’t like going to that Cub, because I’ve had some less than pleasant interactions with employees there, but I had to pick up a prescription anyway, so I stopped for cheese. I was thinking I’d do a nice asiago, but then I saw the goat cheese. I’m smitten with goat cheese, so that’s what ended up on the pizza. It was amazing.
Crust
I have two go-to recipes for pizza crust and you can find them here and here, or if I am doing gluten-free, I use Bob’s Red Mill and simply follow the directions there. If you have a favorite crust, use it. I use the first recipe, the beer crust, for lighter pizzas or if I want a slightly sweeter crust. I say slightly, because it isn’t really sweet, but it isn’t as nutty and hearty as the second one, the wheat one. Bob’s gluten-free crust is actually pretty delicious, so I use it, even if I am not really concerned about gluten-freeness. I make them all vegan if I can; Bob’s has the vegan recipe right on the bag.
I always par-bake my crust for 5-7 minutes or until it’s firm enough to not get soggy when I add the sauce. I hate squishy crust, so this is important to me.
Sauce
For this pizza there really wasn’t a sauce. I did brush it lightly with a mix of butter, olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Turns our we didn’t have any garlic at home, or this would’ve had roasted garlic, instead of garlic powder.
Toppings
I cut the vegetables, except the mushrooms, into fairly equal pieces, tossed them in the same butter and olive oil sauce, covered them with more salt and pepper, and roasted them until the potatoes were edible soft and the onions were getting sweet. That took about 40 minutes this time.
I made a balsamic reduction by putting a bit of brown sugar into some balsamic vinegar and let it bowl down until it was fairly sweet and viscous. This I reserved for after the pizza was out of the oven.
I used the arugula, cheese, and mushrooms with cooking them first.
Putting It All Together
I used the beer crust, but with water instead of beer. After it was finished proofing, I cut it into equal thirds. One third I froze for a pizza next week, one third I used for this pizza, and one third I used for garlic knots. I par-baked the third I used for the pizza tonight for 5 minutes before adding any toppings.
First, I coated it very lightly with some garlic butter sauce. I then put on half of the goat cheese, the roasted vegetables, the mushrooms, a very light drizzle of the balsamic reduction, and the rest of the goat cheese.
I baked the pizza for about 15 minutes, or until the sides of the crust were a light brown color.
After baking, I took the pizza out of the oven, spread it all over with arugula. Then I used the rest of the balsamic reduction as a drizzle over the top.
I also made some garlic knots from the other half of the crust.
Basically, I just roll the third of the crust for this into a log. I then cut it into 6 or 8 equal pieces, deepening on how many people are eating the knots and how much the crust rises and proofs up.
I take each piece and roll it into a snake, then tie it into a knot. I place them on the baking stone and brush then with a bit of olive oil, sprinkle them with salt and pepper, garlic powder, and Italian seasonings.
I bake them for about 10 minutes, then brush them with some melted butter, and then bake them until they are a nice light brown color. They will likely be a bit doughy, which is how I like them.
You can make a sauce to dip them in, but I think they are nice, just as they are.
When I cook, I don’t really measure or use recipes, so you can do whatever you need to for taste. Best of luck to you. If you have questions, feel free to comment and ask! I’ll be happy to try and help.
Reason Breeds Insanity 
