Beet Pizza with Greens and Goat Cheese

Maybe that plate wasn't the best choice...I can see my reflection...

I am so tempted to call this a "Beetza", but I am refraining. Except I just wrote it there...so...I've failed. At least it's not in the title? I had originally planned to make some sort of beet galette or tart with the beets and their greens (far more classy and hard to turn into a bad pun), but it had been a long day and I wasn't feeling up to messing around with pastry dough. Pizza dough though--mix, knead, and ignore for an hour while I take a nap. I was all about that.

Roasted beets. Also reflective. Just like that plate. I am not winning today, folks. Also, if anyone knows how to get beet stains out of a cutting board, do let me know. I'm going to try a baking soda paste. We'll see...

The one thing that made this pizza particularly easy was that I had roasted the beets on Sunday. The key to dealing with CSA beets is to immediately cut off the greens when you get them home. Store those in a plastic bag in your fridge. Store the beets separately. During either the coolest part of the day you pick them up, or the coolest part of the next day, wash them, trim them, wrap them in foil, and then roast them in a 375 degrees until they can be easily pierced with a knife (the time varies greatly depending on the size of your beets). You can also boil them, but I find the flavor to not be as good. However, you can use the "beet water" to make borscht. The beets will keep in an air-tight container in your fridge for 3-5 days. 

The greens are great sauteed and eaten either by themselves, with eggs, in pasta, in a grain salad. They're just generally delicious and can be used in any recipe where you would use chard. The stems are also edible. I don't use them in this recipe; it seemed like they would have weighed the pizza down. The stems, however, can be sauteed along with some garlic before you toss the greens in with them. I saved mine and plan to add them to a stir-fry later this week.

As I said, I had originally envisioned this pizza as a tart or galette, but laziness and end of the school year exhaustion. However, I love what I came up with. The topping is actually inspired by recipe for beets with preserved lemon relish in Plenty. I'm just on a preserved lemon kick this month. I made them in March. Why I suddenly decided to put them in everything in June, I don't know. Anyway, I decided to take the salad (which I have never actually made) and turn it into a pizza. There's nothing wrong with adding cheese to a salad and then turning it into a pizza. I did add the beet greens and subtract tomatoes.

One thing about putting cooked greens on pizza: make sure to get all of the water out. Otherwise you get soggy pizza crust. And no one wants that. My favorite method is to use a salad spinner. It gets the water out with minimal mess.

On a completely unrelated note: I made this while wearing a white shirt (don't ask me why I didn't change when I got home from work, or why I took a nap in my work shirt and some sweat pants...I don't know the answer to that) and I didn't ruin it. I deserve a cookie. Or maybe a strawberry-balsamic popsicle (which I may post about on Friday, depending on my level of ambition).

Beet Pizza with Greens and Goat Cheese

1 recipe for half-whole wheat pizza dough
2 small roasted beets*, sliced thinly
olive oil
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/2 T minced preserved lemon
greens from one bunch of beets, stems removed and cut into a chiffonade
2 oz goat cheese
freshly ground black pepper

Preheat your oven to 475 with the pizza stone on the bottom rack. Let the stone heat for an hour or so (while the dough is proofing).

Heat a bit of olive oil in a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the garlic. Cook for about 30 seconds and then toss in the beet greens. Cook until the greens are a bit wilted and beginning to release some water. Remove from heat. Let the greens cool a bit and squeeze out all of the water. You can do this by pressing the greens against the side of a fine meshed strainer or by using a salad spinner (my preferred method).

Roll out the dough on a piece of parchment or a peel to about 9" (mine is never round. It's fine. Just call it "rustic"). Top with a bit of olive oil, the greens, the preserved lemons, the sliced beets, and then crumble the cheese on top.

Bake for about 12 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool for a minute or two before slicing. Delicious.

Serves 2-3 with salad (I would go with two just two, but rainy weather makes me ravenous. I'm assuming with normal people it would serve three).

This recipe has been shared with Cast Party Wednesdays, Tastetastic Thursdays,  Full Plate Thursday, Foodie Friday and Gallery of Favorites