PIZZA TUESDAYS

Spicy sesame stir fry with nameko mushrooms, purple daikon, Swiss chard, sesame seeds, cashew-cilantro drizzle, Parmesan The great thing about a stir fry is that you can easily make a lot of substitutions, based on what you have lying around, what you can find at the market and/or what's in season. We found some seasonal ingredients at our local farmers' market that go well with Asian flavors: nameko mushrooms, which are slightly nutty and have a shiny amber look, and purple

Oven-roasted cherry tomatoes & chanterelle mushrooms, garlic scape pesto with walnuts & Parmesan cheese, fresh feta cheese, toasted pine nuts Garlic scapes are such a great find this time of year. They make you feel like you went out and foraged for wild garlic even when you just walked down the street to the farmers' market. They're also super versatile and they go great with our chanterelle mushrooms (also a great find that we wished we had foraged for). You can, of course,

Skyr & Brennevín sauce, wildberry jam, caramelized fennel & crimini mushrooms, black lava salt, licorice While we already made one pizza in anticipation of our trip to Iceland, this one was inspired by a lot of the ingredients and flavors we found while we were there. We found that while a lot of traditional Icelandic foods use harsh, acquired-taste Viking flavors like brennevín, licorice and fermented shark, Icelanders themselves tend to offset this by favoring sweet, rich f

Mashed root vegetables (celeriac, rutabaga, parsnips, carrots, Yukon gold potatoes), sun-dried jujubes, sauteed oyster mushrooms, shaved carrots, fresh tarragon, Gruyere We found these sun-dried jujubes at the Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market. Like most jujubes found in the US, they are meant to be eaten in their dried form, and the result is a sweet flavor kind of similar to dates, but slightly milder. Rather than being sticky like dates, though, the texture is

Sauteed fennel, chanterelle & maitake mushrooms, aquavit & gjetost cheese sauce, shallots & dill We came up with this pizza after a visit to Adam’s parents in Minnesota, where Scandinavian cuisine is second only to cheese, and where we tried Aquavit and gjetost for the first time. Aquavit is kind of like a Scandinavian gin made with caraway and other flavors. It’s intense, but definitely worth trying. Gjetost (pronounced yay-toast) is a strangely sweet, almost caramely rich c

Sauteed lion’s mane mushrooms (or pom pom mushrooms), broccoli rabe pesto, roasted carrots & spring onions, celtuce (or celery lettuce), goat cheese, sherry vinaigrette Recipe Ingredients: 1 ball of dough flour for dusting semolina flour for pizza stone olive oil salt & pepper 1 log of goat cheese, crumbled 2 lion’s mane mushrooms, torn into chunks 2 tablespoons butter 4 carrots, 3 cut into wedges lengthwise & 1 shaved on a mandoline ½ bunch spring onions (the kind w

Bok choy gratin with Gruyere & Parmesan, fresh fava beans, sauteed mixed mushrooms (shiitake, crimini & oyster) Recipe Ingredients: 1 ball of pizza dough flour for dusting semolina flour for pizza stone olive oil salt & pepper ~1 cup mixed mushrooms (we used crimini, shiitake & oyster), sliced couple handfuls of fresh fava beans ½ cup breadcrumbs For the gratin: ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons fine breadcrumbs 1-2 bunches bok choy, tough stems trimmed, remaining stems & cen

New Orleans-style jambalaya (with brown rice, tomatoes, bay leaves, crimini mushrooms, green bell peppers, onions, Creole seasoning, Worcestershire sauce, red kidney beans), crispy fried chorizo sausage, oven-roasted okra, buffalo mozzarella Recipe Ingredients: 1 ball of pizza dough olive oil flour for dusting semolina flour for pizza stone salt & pepper 1 cooked chorizo sausage, sliced about 12 whole okra, tops cut off (above the ridge, so slime doesn’t ooze out) 1 ba

Homemade kimchi mayonnaise, seared maitake with toasted garlic, blue cheese, toasted cashews Recipe Ingredients: 1 ball of pizza dough flour for dusting semolina flour for the pizza stone olive oil salt & pepper 2-3 maitake mushrooms (also called hen of the woods), cleaned & halved through the stem 2-3 garlic cloves, minced blue cheese crumbles about ½ cup salted cashews For the mayo: 3 egg yolks 1 1/3 cup oil (you can use a number of different kinds of oil here—we us

Smashed medlar fruit, goat cheese, roasted persimmon & mushroom medley (oyster, shiitake, baby bella), walnuts, kale with lemon juice So, admittedly, before we made this pizza, we had never used (nor heard of) medlar fruit, so it probably merits a bit of explaining. Nicknamed by Chaucer the “open arse” because of its appearance, it was often compared in literature to prostitution, because it is rotten before it is ripe. That is, it has to be “bletted” before it can be eaten,