Rustic Garlic Onion Pizza

What do you do when you want to make pizza, but don't have enough time or any major pizza ingredients?

You make a gourmet pizza!


This recipe was born tonight out of a desire for pizza. I really wanted to make pizza, but there were a couple things stopping me. If I made a traditional yeast pizza crust, we would have to wait to eat until it was almost Zaylee's bedtime. And we had no real pizza toppings, such as pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, olives, green peppers, pizza sauce, etc.

All we had was onions. And mozzarella.

And a really good recipe for yeastless focaccia.

Rustic Garlic Onion Pizza
1 cup water
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. olive oil
(remember the focaccia I keep making? Yup - this is that recipe)

1 tbsp. minced garlic (the kind you get in a big jar and keep in the fridge)
1/4 cup thinly sliced onion
4 oz. sliced mozzarella
Parmesan
Italian seasoning

Preheat oven to 425. Grease a baking sheet.

Make crust by combining water, flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir until the mixture forms a ball. Plop ball of dough into prepared pan. Pour olive oil onto your (clean) hands and, with oiled fingers, spread the dough out flat - to about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thickness.

Smear garlic as evenly as possible over the crust. Spread onion slices over garlic. Top with sliced mozzarella. Bake for 18-20 minutes. The mozzarella started getting really browned on top. At that point, I pretty much decided that next time I'll wait to add the mozzarella until later. But when we ate it, the browned cheese added a great flavor, so I'll just keep adding it at first like I did tonight.

After baking, remove from oven and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and Italian seasoning. Return to oven and bake until Parmesan starts browning and edge of crust is lightly golden.


As I was eating this, I decided that this is the best pizza I've ever made. Of course I will always love a good saucy, gooey, topping-laden traditional pizza. But this was fancier and more gourmet than I've ever done, and it was absolutely fantastic! The uneven edges and slightly burnt onion pieces gave this pizza a very rustic feel, hence the name of the pizza.


How did the rest of the family like it? Zaylee picked all the cheese off and ate it first. Then she found the onions. She picked them off. And ate them all! Then she ate the bread. And then she took another piece. Needless to say she really enjoyed this pizza. And Thomas couldn't get enough of the crust. He confiscated Jeff's crust and wouldn't give it back. Jeff had to take another piece.

Another great thing about this pizza - not only was it inexpensive and made with random ingredients I just threw together, not only was it easy, not only was it delicious and fancy (does food get any better than all that?) - this pizza is also low calorie. I ate 3 pieces.

Pizza heaven.


Makes 8 pieces.
175 calories per piece.