Rainbow Pizza (Pizza Night)

This pizza was more an exercise in How Many Colors Can I Put On The Blank Canvas of Alfredo Sauce & Dough than a real taste combination inspiration. It started because I saw Alfredo sauce marked down and thought that would be good on a pizza, and continued when the yellow Bright Lights Swiss chard was calling to me from the garden.  Then I started looking around and noticed the red tomatoes, the mushrooms . . . and finally a purple pepper.  Just be grateful I didn't grab the beets or blueberries.  This time.  While it made for a pretty pizza, and it tasted good, I don't usually prefer sliced tomatoes on my pizza so next time I'd leave them off.  If you love them, go for it.

And I can see red, and yellow, and green, and purple, and brown, and . . .

See NOTE below about the giant dough bucket.  And I forgot the garlic.  Again. And pepper.

At this point, the stems and shrooms are sautéed and the leaves are taking a turn in the skillet.

Kiddie pizza in the foreground (cheese with a pepperoni section)

Rainbow Pizza (Tomato, Mushroom, Chard, Pepper on Alfredo)

For general pizza hints and tips, see my Pizza Primer here!
2 medium tomatoes

4 large stems Swiss chard (or a small bunch if your chard isn't HUGE like mine)
1 teaspoon bacon grease or olive oil or butter or buttery stick

1 clove roasted garlic (here's how I roast mine) or minced garlic
3 baby bella mushrooms, coarsely chopped

1/2 purple bell pepper (or the color you've got handy)
the pizza dough of your choice (see NOTE below)

3 Tablespoons Alfredo sauce
3/4 cup shredded cheese (I had both Italian blend and Pizza blend and used some of each)
Italian seasoning blend (I used Penzey's Pasta Sprinkle)
pepper


Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Slice the tomatoes and let them rest to release some of their juice.  Feed the tops to your composting pigs or just compost them more directly.  Coarsely chop the chard stems, slice the leaves into thin ribbons, and set the leaves aside for now.  Preheat a small skillet over medium heat.  Add a teaspoon of bacon grease or the fat of your choice, and sauté the chard stems about 5 minutes until they are soft.  Set aside.  Add the mushrooms and garlic to the skillet, sauté until the mushrooms give up their juice, about 5 minutes.  Set aside.  Turn off the heat under the skillet and toss the chard leaves just to get them a tiny bit of heat, but not enough to darken their color.  Honestly, you could just toss the whole thing together in the skillet but for some reason I like to distribute each topping over the pizza individually so I keep them separate.  Until I combine them on the pizza.  I know, it's odd.

On a piece of oiled parchment paper, stretch/press the dough into a vaguely circular shape.  Spread 3 Tablespoons of prepared Alfredo sauce thinly over the crust.  Sprinkle with Italian seasoning blend. Lay tomatoes evenly across dough.  Unless you don't care for fresh tomato slices on a pizza, then skip this part.  Top with the chard stems, the mushrooms, and the chard leaves.  Realize that you'll blog about eating your colors, dig around in the crisper, pull out a purple pepper, slice a bit of it up, and spread it evenly over top.  Top with shredded cheese. Add a couple grinds of pepper.  Transfer the whole thing, parchment paper and all, into the oven (where my pizza stone lives).  Bake at 450 degrees for 8-10 minutes, then yank the parchment paper out from underneath the crust.  Bake 2-5 minutes more until the cheese is bubbly.  Cool 5 minutes on a wire rack then slice and serve.

NOTE:  If you use Boboli or other prepared pizza crust, follow package instructions for baking.  This week, I am enjoying crust using the Key recipe from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.  I used my mixer once and have enough dough for 4 pizzas.