First Taste of Fall

What a lovely weekend. After a stressful couple of days, I was really looking forward to spending a few days with friends and, of course, eating some delicious food. Rob, Tucker, and I walked to the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning to pick up a final summer heirloom tomatoes and some of the season's first Honeycrisp apples. Then we headed to Owen's for a couple of fresh bagels and made breakfast back at my apartment (I had half my bagel with tomato and avocado, and the other half with almond butter and banana). Tuck was pooped when we got back...

We spent the afternoon wandering through the Greek Festival, watching some football at East Blvd. Bar and Grill, and rearranging my apartment furniture - fun, right? I was too full from breakfast to get anything at East, but Rob had solid-4 stars turkey sandwich (but we all know the chicken cheesesteak is the way to go).

Once dinner time rolled around, I was dead set on using up some of my CSA food from last week. I had/have a ton of eggplant and sweet potatoes, but Rob was really craving pizza and let's be serious: I can never say no to pizza. We picked up some whole wheat dough, proscuitto, and fresh mozz from Harris Teeter (along with a 6-pack of Shock Top Pumpkin Wheat, which sadly wasn't thaaaat tasty) and made one of the most delicious pizzas I've ever had. We're trying to make the "perfect pizza" and I think we came pretty close this time.

Ingredients:
Whole wheat dough
Garlic olive oil (or crushed garlic and EVOO)
Eggplant
Onions
Mushrooms
S+P
Basil
Arugula
Proscuitto
Fresh mozzarella

Slice the eggplant and salt it, allowing it to release extra water. Let sit for 30 minutes in a colander, then rinse and pat dry. Make sure you rinse the salt off well! Preheat the oven to broil. Cube the eggplant and toss lightly in olive oil and pepper. Cook for 3 minutes. Add chopped onions and mushrooms to the pan and cook for another few minutes. Remove from the oven and lower the temperature to 400. Meanwhile, roll out the pizza dough and place on a floured pizza stone or baking sheet. Drizzle on the garlic olive oil and let the crust bake for about 8-10 minutes (this prevents the crust from getting soggy when you add the toppings). Layer the cheese, veggies, and proscuitto onto the crust, letting the proscuitto sit on the top so it get's nice and crispy. Cook until the cheese melts, and then broil for a minute or two -- keep a close eye so it doesn't burn. Pull the pie out of the oven and let it cool a bit before topping with spicy arugula and fresh basil. Enjoy!