Zucchini Pizza with Cherry Tomatoes and Feta

My mother is begging, pleading with me to take more zucchini.

Are you sure you don't need any more? 

"Yeah, pretty sure we're stocked up." 

I already took a load of zucchini to the soup kitchen. 

"Wonderful, I'm sure they appreciate that."

You know you can shred it up and make zucchini bread. 

"Yes mom."

A bounty of fresh food, what a great problem to have. Add in the fact that I've been itching to make homemade pizza for awhile now, and zucchini pizza seemed like a natural fit. 

Zucchini?  On pizza?

Actually, as long as it meant I was taking a couple extra zucchini off her hands, I could've been making zucchini ice cream and my dear mom would nod her head in approval. 

I love the idea of homemade pizza, like in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle where Barbara Kingsolver gathers her family together every Friday night for homemade pizza night. In her book, everyone happily pitches in the pizza making, for all I know they probably play Pictionary afterwards and all, including her teenage daughter, are pleased as punch about it.  However, it's going to take some time for me to achieve family pizza bliss as honestly, I don't typically have much luck with homemade pizza.  Either my crust is too soggy, or my toppings too heavy, or my dough too sticky, and I usually end up thinking I should've just saved myself the effort and called Papa John's instead.  But eureka!  I had some good luck with this one, and I have one lady to thank: Ms. Deborah Madison.

I picked up her book Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone at the public library book sale last fall.  Since it's a hefty tome over 700 pages and as book sale customers pay by the pound (50 cents/lb for hardcover, $1.00/lb for paperback), it was a splurge...oh, who am I kidding, 50 cents/lb?  The whole cookbook probably set me back $1.50.  I can't even buy a cup of coffee for that anymore. 

The cookbook sat unused, hibernating on my cookbook shelf, patiently waiting for its grand entrance.  Winter past with our usual dinners of venison, pheasant, and other such meaty creatures that certainly I wouldn't find in the pages of a book titled Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.  It wasn't a great reference for baking, either with only three, count 'em, three recipes the index under "chocolate."  In comparison, chard gets 14. 

But then, spring came and our CSA shares started coming in. What the heck am I going to do with all these beets and kale?  

I pulled that hefty cookbook down from its shelf and it hasn't left my counter top all summer.  Whatever vegetable I have just pulled out of my garden or received from my wonderful Riverbound Farm CSA share, I just flip to the index and find a dozen great ideas of what to do with it. It's my vegetable bible.  Ms. Madison's recipes are simple with straight-forward ingredients that let the vegetable freshness shine through, always with delicious results.  Olive oil and lemon juice make frequent appearances in her recipes, along with fresh herbs.  Many of the flavors lean towards a European-palate rather than the Asian-inspired flavors that we see more of today (this cookbook was published in 1997, almost 15 years ago) and the photography inside feels dated, but the recipes are perfection and I appreciate the fact that I can find nearly every single ingredient at my local grocery store.  

So back to the pizza.  If anyone could help me make a decent zucchini pizza, I thought Deborah could. I whipped up her simple pizza dough recipe, set half aside for two pizzas today, put the other half in the freezer for two pizzas next week.  I grabbed some yellow pear tomatoes out of my garden along with fresh basil, sliced up some of mom's zucchini, and got cookin'.  I neglected to preheat my pizza stone in the oven, so my first pizza ended up with that dreaded soggy crust, but the second pizza on the hot stone?  Perfection. All the flavors waltzed together on my taste buds, the crust was just the right amount of crispy, and I felt a twinge of satisfaction from finally winning a round in my ongoing pursuit of great homemade pizza. 

Zucchini Pizza with Cherry Tomatoes and Feta

Pizza Dough

1 1/2 cups warm water
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 to 1 cup whole-wheat flour, to taste
3 to 3 1/2 cups flour

 Pour 1/2 cup of the water into a mixing bowl, stir in the yeast, and set aside until foamy, about 10 minutes. Add the remaining water, olive oil, and salt, then beat in the whole wheat flour followed by enough white flour to form a shaggy dough. Turn it out onto the counter and knead until smooth, adding more flour as needed to keep it from sticking. For a crisp, light crust, pizza dough should be on the moist side, which means it will be slightly tacky.

 Put the dough into an oiled bowl, turn it once to coat, then cover with a towel and set aside to rise until doubled in size, 40 to 60 minutes. Turn the dough onto the counter and divide into the number of pizzas you want. Shape each piece into a ball, set on a lightly floured counter, cover with a towel, and let rise for another 20 to 30 minutes.

The rest of the recipe, making one 10" pizza

1/4 recipe Pizza Dough (freeze the rest for future pizzas)
3 small-to-medium zucchini, thinly sliced into rounds
Olive oil for sautéing, plus extra virgin for the top
Salt and freshly milled pepper
4 ounces cherry tomatoes
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
4 basil leaves, torn or thinly sliced
2 ounces mozzarella, thinly sliced or diced
2 ounces feta or goat cheese, crumbled

 Preheat the oven to 500F with the pizza stone or pan preheating in the oven as well.

 Sauté the zucchini in 1 tablespoon olive oil in a skillet over medium heat until tender and beginning to color, about 4 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Slice the tomatoes into halves or quarters and toss them with the garlic, a little olive oil some pepper, and half the basil.

 Roll or stretch the dough into a 10-inch circle, set it on a floured peel or pizza pan. Distribute the mozzarella and zucchini over the dough, then add the tomatoes. Bake on a stone or in the pan for 5 minutes, then add the feta cheese and bake for 3 minutes more or until crust is browned and cheese is bubbly. Remove, drizzle with little extra virgin olive oil, and sprinkle on the rest of the basil leaves.