Pickled Pepper and Pepperoni Pizza (Pizza Night!)

"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers and placed them properly on a pizza."   --my daughter

I love pickled peppers on submarine sandwiches.  They add just a little pop of zing which really perks up even the plainest meal.  It never occurred to me to put peppers on a pizza, however.  I can credit that to Jodi at the thrift shop where I spend money volunteer.  I really don't know if the banana peppers on the pizza we ordered were pickled or not.  I just knew after having a single bite that I had to try my pickled peppers on a pepperoni pizza.

The members of my family are not huge hot pepper eaters, and when a hot pepper plant is producing, it's going crazy.  In most of the farm shares I've joined, we either got no hot peppers or a pint a week.  I used to use a few fresh farm share hot peppers in salsa and donate the rest of the week's haul to the food bank.  Then I tried pickling my own hot peppers.  My spouse took a jar in to work, and I was rewarded with even more hot peppers to pickle!

This summer, when your garden, your CSA farm share, or your spouse's coworker give you even a quart of hot peppers, I recommend checking out Food in Jars.  Marisa's blog really de-mystified small batch canning and encouraged me to try just a give it a try and see how it went.  I used to check the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving out of my local library until I found it red-stickered at a Target clearance end cap.  Score!

Back to the pickled peppers for tonight's pizza.  If you haven't put up pickled peppers, pick up a jar at the store--or maybe there's one on the door of your fridge?  Go see!

Because I loved that pepperoni and pepper pizza, I figured I'd try and make it at home.  I kept it simple with respect to the dough, sauce, and cheese.  This time, at least.  I just let the pickled peppers give that little pop of zing which did really perk up the slice.  A perky poppy pickled pepper and pepperoni pizza.

 

Pickled Pepper and Pepperoni Pizza

1 pound pizza dough (see my pizza primer here)
1/2 cup red sauce (my folks brought me a jar of Grotto's from Delaware--Love!)
21 slices of pepperoni (I was going for a heavy meat taste here, use half and chop them up if you like)
1/3 cup sliced pickled hot peppers
1 to 1 1/2 cups shredded Italian blend cheese

Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.  Baking stone in the oven?  Check.  Use a cookie sheet if you don't have a baking stone.  On an oiled sheet of parchment paper, stretch out dough into the shape that floats your boat today.  Spread sauce across the dough to the edges.  Top with portly pepperoni and pretty pickled peppers properly placed in a pleasing pattern (that's why I'm the mom, honeybun).  Scatter cheese across the top.  Transfer the whole thing, parchment and all, onto your baking stone (or slide the parchment onto your cookie sheet and stick it in the hot oven).  Bake for 5-8 minutes, then shake the parchment out from underneath the dough and continue to bake another 3-5 minutes until the cheese is browned and bubbly.  Cool on a rack a few minutes.  Slice and serve.  Enjoy!  And stay tuned, because my friend Heather and I collaborated (meaning, she gave me all the ideas and I wrote them down and made the pizza) on a vegetarian pizza featuring pickled peppers.  Coming to a Farm Fresh Feasts blog near you in July!  Why July?  You'll have seasonal peppers then, I hope.

This post is shared with the Farm Girl Blog Fest, with the Clever Chicks Blog Hop, What's Cookin' Wednesday, the Wednesday Fresh Foods Link Up at Gastronomical Sovereignty,  What's In The Box at In Her Chucks, and Foodie Friends Friday.

Well, would you look at that--I made an edge with the crust.  Sort of.