Pizza Pizza Pizza

I've been mildly obsessed with pizza for the past couple of months.  I was a goner after the discovery of Trader Joe's pizza dough and have been trying to top it with the best combo of cheeses and veggies.

Our first pizza experiment was sort of like eating a salad on top of pizza dough.  I've since lost the recipe, but it went something like this...  First saute mushrooms until they've lost all their juice (this takes awhile, but it's worth it, since they'll get pretty soggy in the oven later), and top the dough with them and fresh mozzarella.  Throw that sucker in the oven.  Meanwhile, toss together a salad (we used arugula and cherry tomatoes) and throw that on top of the pizza when it comes out of the oven.  Easy!

We paired this salad-y pizza with a Pinot Gris from Joseph Swan in Sonoma.

Next on the list of pizza adventures was Beretta, in the Mission district of San Francisco.  Despite the classy interior, we were seated (in Mission style) at the end of a long communal bar table in the middle of the restaurant.  The cocktails were fantastic, as were all of the pizzas.  My pizza had grilled veggies, mozzarella, and pesto.  Tyler's had potato, rosemary, and Gorgonzola..we liked his better.  Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures.


Then I ran across this recipe.  Fruit and balsamic and basil on a pizza?  Okay!  We mixed it up a little by using fontina cheese and adding some chopped walnuts.  Somehow all of the unique flavors on this pizza didn't overwhelm me.  In fact, it was pretty perfect, especially when paired with a Gary Farrell Chardonnay (from the same Sonoma trip as the Joseph Swan).  The extra balsamic reduction was even great over a salad with baby heirloom tomatoes.

Finally, we hit up Starbelly in the Castro/Mission area of San Francisco.  I loved their back patio and the basil aoli that came with the house cut fries.  Mmmm...  We sprung for a pizza with bleu cheese, pear, onion, arugula, and prosciutto.  It was very much worth it.  The bleu cheese was extremely strong, but that's just how I like it.

After this much pizza, I thought about taking a break.  Then I started wondering what other fruits could go well on pies.  There might be more pizza-related posts coming up!