Tremendously Green Pizza (Bacon, Cabbage, Caramelized Onion, Leek and Potato Pizza on a Spinach Crust) Pizza Night!

Oh goodness, where to start?  If I was all about pink pizzas last month for Valentine's day, this month I'm into green pizzas.  Well, there's also a mushroom medley coming up, and a salmon/arugula one for Good Friday, but still . . .  here at Farm Fresh Feasts, March comes in like a green pizza.

You'd better get a fork and knife for this pizza.  The crust barely has a chance to stand up to the onslaught of ingredients.  I mean, I knew that potatoes, cabbage, onions and bacon worked well together.  Everything goes better with bacon.  But when I got leeks in the farm share I couldn't help myself.  It also seems very appropriate for a St Patty's Day pizza, what with the potatoes and cabbage and utter green-ness of the thing.  Went well with beer, too.

I'd planned to do a leek, potato, and bacon pizza.  Three toppings, the title of the post wouldn't be too long, no biggie.  Leek and potatoes go together like salmon and oranges, zucchini and nutella, peanut butter and jelly.  But when I was snuffling around in my little fruit and veg freezer (which also happens to be the Extra Pizza Items freezer) debating between garlic oil or  _____ for the 'sauce', I saw the packet of caramelized onions I'd carefully saved.  Why not a layer of caramelized onions as the sauce?
Done!

So far, we've got a layer of caramelized onions, topped with potato slices, and leeks, and bacon.  That sounds pretty tasty, no?  Then I opened the fridge and saw the bags of Chinese cabbage and spinach from the farm share.  They were not getting any younger.  I know I love a spinach crust, and it was time to inflict a spinach crust on the rest of the family.  So the spinach went into the crust.  The cabbage (and you could use any cabbage you got for this, I'd think, though red cabbage would necessarily change the title), why not add that just to push this pizza over the edge?  Done!

Really,  if you've put up the ingredients as they come to you ripe/in season/on sale, this sort of thing isn't as crazy as it sounds.  It's not like I went to the store specifically to get the ingredients for this pizza. Ha!  I think the only thing I go to the store specifically for these days is milk, beer, and grapes.  Everything else just kind of happens.  Like my life!

Bacon, Chinese Cabbage, Caramelized Onion, Leek and Potato Pizza on a Spinach Crust

3 small-to-medium potatoes (mine were from the farm share, I'd go waxy over starchy if buying)

1 cup leeks, well-washed, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces

2 cups cabbage (I used Chinese because I had it, but whatever you've got), thinly sliced

1 ball spinach pizza dough (recipe here)

1/2 cup caramelized onions (make them in the crock pot, then put into packets to freeze!)

1 strip bacon, cooked until crisp and chopped into thin pieces

1 cup shredded Manchego cheese

For general pizza making info, please refer to my Pizza Primer if you'd like.  It's got some good stuff and I had a blast making photo collages.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.  My baking stone lives in my oven, so if you have a baking stone or pizza stone (now my kids will say "Or very small rocks? They float, like a duck?") please put it into the oven to preheat.  The stone, not the rocks or duck.

You're going to want to precook the potatoes, as in this pizza.  I did mine in a bucket of water in the microwave for 8 minutes this time.  Cool and slice thinly. Set aside.

Preheat a skillet over medium heat, add a small splash of oil, and sauté the leeks for 5 minutes or until they've started to soften.  Add in the cabbage and sauté a few more minutes until everything is bright green and wilted.  Set aside. (Note:  I kept my leeks and cabbage separate. I'm weird.) (Second note:  I started to write this up while cooking and the leeks got a bit over-browned.  I'm sorry.)

On an oiled piece of parchment paper, stretch out the dough into a circle-ish shape.  Do what you like, I'm certainly not picky about this step.  Spread the caramelized onions evenly across the top.  If you've thawed a packet of previously-caramelized onions, like I did, they will be very soft, jammy, and spread easily into a sauce-like consistency while simultaneously looking like boiled worms.

Not the worms that live in my son's closet.  Those are red wigglers, and I love them and what they do to my tea bags, banana peels, jack-o-lanterns and houseplants (they eat the former and nourish the latter).  Totally remembering this for future pizzas.  Not the worms.  The caramelized onions as sauce.

Top the onions with slices of potato, being slightly picky to make it even.  Sprinkle salt and grind pepper across the top of the potato slices.  Top with leeks, then cabbage (or, if you aren't picky about that like I am, top with the contents of the skillet).  Scatter bacon across the top.  You'd be surprised just how far a single strip of bacon will go in terms of flavor.  I sure am.  Cover the pizza with cheese.

Bake, on the parchment paper on your baking stone or a cookie sheet (but if you don't have a baking stone, check thrift stores as I recently saw 2 pizza stones where I work) for 5-8 minutes.  Then shimmy the pizza off the parchment paper and continue baking another 3-5 minutes or until the cheese is melted and slightly browned.  Cool on a rack,  slice, and serve with utensils as it's heavy.

This post is linked up with The Farm Girl Blog Fest at Let This Mind Be In You, the Wednesday Fresh Foods Link Up at Gastronomical Sovereignty,  What's Cookin' Wednesday at Buns in My Oven What's In The Box at In Her Chucks, Taste and Tell Thursdays, Food on Friday