Feb. 9: Brussels Sprout, Ham, and Parmesan Pizza

Brussels sprout, ham, and Parmesan pizza sounds a little random, and I must admit that it is. But, that is what I had, and that is what I made, and it was pretty tasty.

If you are interested in this random mixture, here is how I made it.

Step 1: Pizza dough: I made mine in the bread machine. You could make it by hand or buy it from the store, doesn't matter much. I have done it all those ways and they all work fine.

Step 2: Roast the Brussels sprouts: I cut off the brown ends and quartered the sprouts, in a baking dish coated them with olive oil, salt and pepper, and popped them in a 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes, make sure to stir around a few times while baking.

Step 3: Sauce: Really you can add whatever kind of sauce you would like, tomato, pesto, white. Using what I had on hand (that is the theme of this pizza) I made a cheesy, garlic, white sauce. To make a white sauce, I use the basic recipe from the More-With-Less cookbook by Dois Janzan Longacre. It is simply (for a thick sauce), 4 Tablespoons butter melted in heavy sauce pan (at this point I added some chopped garlic as well), blend in 4 Tablespoons flour and 1/4 teaspoon salt and stir until bubbly, using a whisk as not to lump, stir in 1 cup milk, cook until just smooth and thickened.  I then added 1/2 cup of grated Parmesan cheese and 1/4 teaspoon of spicy brown mustard (my white sauce looks a little brown because I only had whole wheat flour to use).

Step 4: Assemble and Cook: I rolled and stretched out my dough onto a pizza stone coated with corn meal, coated the dough with olive oil and baked it at 450 degrees for about 10 mins. Then I removed the dough from the oven, added the cheesy, garlic sauce, more shredded Parmesan, ham, and the Brussels sprouts, popped it back in the oven for about 5-10 mins, until crust was done and cheese melted.

                          

Step 5: Cool, slice and enjoy!