You know who really needs Spring Break? Adults. Teacher friends, you were smart to get into education. It’s a job I know I could never do, let’s face it, unless I taught 1st or 2nd grade, all the kids would be taller than me. But more than that, you get breaks!
We’re just back from some time in Hawaii for the annual escape to sunshine, hence the radio silence around here. The one thing we didn’t have for the duration of our trip was pizza. Hanalei Pizza Company is gone, about to be replaced by a Puka Dog. So, for the first time in ages, we went 10 days without even a slice of pizza. Since we had nothing else in the house, pizza was our first meal back.
And whaddya know, my first post back is a Friday Night Slice. Today’s slice is a vegetarian Kale, Calabrian Chile & Mozzarella pie with thinly shaved garlic.
I can’t call our time away a vacation, it was mostly a change of scenery. I learned that heading out on a Tuesday and heading home on a Wednesday, while a few bucks cheaper, was rough. The truth of vacation is, no matter what day of the week you leave, you’ll be working late wrapping stuff up and trying to get your bags packed, and you really need a day on the backend to let your body figure out what time zone you’re in.
I should have had more time for drafting posts while we were away, but I read instead, making some good headway into Maggie Stiefvater’s Dream Thieves – the second book in The Raven Boys
It’s the first I‘ve made with Giusto’s High Performer flour – won in a Facebook giveaway from the Baking Steel folks. Using the usual NY-style recipe, I was able to get a nice crust edge and a really thin center, thinner than I’ve been able to manage with the King Arthur Bread flour. It’s worth tracking down.
Kale, Calabrian Chile & Garlic Pizza
Ingredients
- 1 pizza dough ball
- 4-6 Lacinato kale leaves, de-stemmed and cut into 3/4 inch pieces
- 2 Calabrian chiles, sliced thinly
- 1 clove garlic, sliced thinly
- 1/4 c. grated mozzarella cheese
- 1 t. olive oil
- kosher salt
Instructions
Preheat baking steel at 500F for 1 hour. Turn up to 550F when ready to bake.
Pat the dough into an 8 inch circle, careful not to flatten the outer edge.
Toss the kale with 1 t. olive oil and season with a pinch of kosher salt.
Slide the dough onto a floured pizza peel and make sure it slides around easily.
Arrange the kale on the dough and add the chiles and garlic slices. Top with mozzarella cheese.
Bake for ~5 minutes until the edge of the crust are browned and the cheese has started to brown.
