instant-karma pizza

I haven't posted a recipe in a long long time (or much of anything else, either) but I felt compelled to brag/bemoan the pizza we had for dinner last night.

It started with some basil. I adore basil. I hit the farmer's market on Wednesday to get some tomatoes, and this woman had a pile of gorgeous heirloom tomatoes in every color of the rainbow, plus a bouquet of basil that I could smell from six feet away.

I bought a bundle, which looks pretty and summery in a straight glass vase on my kitchen counter, and announced I was going to make pesto with it.

"Ooo," said my husband, the enabler. "Pesto flatbreads. Pesto flatbreads!"

And because I can't say no, either to him or to the craving for pizza I'd had the last couple weeks, I said, "Okay, what else do you want for toppings?"

"Carmelized onions," he said without hesitation. "Pork. Brie."

"Brie??" I said incredulously.

"Brie. And maybe some crumbled feta."

It sounded like a strange combination to me, but I set out to make it work. Clearly this was not a pizza that would need or want tomato sauce. The pesto would serve for the oil and the salty flavor, plus I was already looking at 3 cheeses (given the parmesan in the pesto) so I could skip the mozz, too.

I got some pork sausage at Steve's Meat Market in DeSoto. It's mild, breakfasty, and full of good pig fat. I browned it in a little olive oil, with balsamic vinegar, rosemary, pepper, parsely and bay leaf.

For the pesto I used a recipe that Sifu Sit provided. He'd made some the night before, and claimed it was superior to many recipes because it had a dab of butter added. Y'know, he was right?

For the crust, I used this recipe, which truly is perfect in my mind. I mixed it up Wednesday night, let it sit in the fridge all day Thursday, and it was ready to go when I got home. I like a tad more salt and sugar in the dough than they call for here, but YMMV. If you spread the dough quite thin, it makes a 10 or 12 inch, crackerlike crust with a bit of chew. I made two balls of dough, each one mixed separately (which takes, like, 5 minutes) and then put in the same bowl to rise.

So: onions sliced thin and gently sauteed in the pig fat. Sun-dried tomatoes from the pantry, diced and warmed with the onions. Tony wilted some spinach to go on his flatbread. I found a shrivelling red pepper in the fridge and elevated it to divine roasted status. Thin slices of brie, sprinkling of feta, dashes of fresh pesto.

I'm embarrassed to admit I ate the whole thing. A whole 10-inch flatbread, by myself. Tony managed to hold back a slice of his, which he had for breakfast.

My fingers were so swollen this morning I could hardly get my ring on. It'll probably take me the rest of the weekend to undo the damage of all that wheat and salt.

But hey, if you're gonna sin.... at least make it worth the while.