Thursday, April 1, 2010

Harvest Meal: Old Meets New Pizza


Fully fledged harvest meals have been a little hard to come by lately.  Even this pizza is a bit of a stretch given that neither the cheese nor the dough are homegrown items.  But everything else on this pizza was either grown on my property, or I had a direct hand in.  It struck me that the toppings are an interesting mixture of a few long-storing items from last year and the earliest crops of this year.

It's April already, and while the fresh garlic that remains from last July's harvest is definitely sprouty, it's still usable.  I think we owe this to the root cellarLast year In 2008 I had to dehydrate all that remained of our homegrown garlic by late December.  Garlic is always a key component when we make pizza.  Rather than a tomato sauce, a few of our smoked tomatoes, rehydrated in hot water for a few minutes, gave a tomatoey intensity to about every other bite of pizza.  Although it's hard to see in the picture, I also added a few thinly shaved pieces of the lardo experiment that ended up smoked.  Laid on top of the other ingredients, these shriveled up and began to crisp deliciously during the very brief time the pizza spent in a hot oven. The bites including these little pieces of lardo were unctuously delicious!

From this year's garden came the spinach, shredded and spread over the pie, and a few scallions chopped up for just a hint of oniony goodness.

Can I just say how hard it was to stop and take a picture of that pizza instead of tearing into it immediately?  Yesterday's fine weather had me doing plenty of outdoor work, and I was hungry by the time that pizza came out of the oven.  Fortunately, I made two of these pizzas, one of which is leftover and will be my lunch on the road today.  I'm going to New Jersey to pick up my fig trees.  Part of yesterday's work was finishing up the self-watering containers they're to be planted in.  I should have a post on that very soon.

10 comments:

Sandy said...

Yum! That pizza looks delicious!

el said...

Oh yum pizza!

One of my favorites here is with radicchio (or any chickory really) on top, thrown in toward the end...nice bite to it.

Good work too on holding the garlic as long as you did. Garlic is important!

Sense of Home Kitchen said...

That pizza looks and sounds so good. Hmm, maybe Saturday night's dinner for us.

Konnie said...

Very cool post. Usually I grow a good part of our food and preserve it. Last year I was out of commission so I am jealous but motivated to get a great garden going this year. Thanks for the inspiration.

Laura said...

Oh dear, I shouldn't have read this post before I've made my breakfast. I'm so hungry, and it looks so delicious!

jaz@octoberfarm said...

yummers....i want pizza now!

Teresa/safira said...

Yum!
When did you start your scallions that you're getting them already?

Kate said...

Teresa, some scallions overwintered in the garden, much to my surprise. Others were put into the cold frame from starts, which I got in a trade earlier this year, and which I'm pretty sure came out of a hoophouse.

KiwiLog said...

Hi! We loved your post over at KiwiLog and decided to feature it as part of our weekly Mom Blog round-up. Thanks!

Kate said...

Kiwilog, I'm not a mom, but I am flattered. So thanks!