Apple, Gouda and Pecan Pizza

Chunks of apples, bits of pecans, and loads of melty Gouda cheese in this savory vegetarian pizza.

When you make pizzas nearly every weekend, and you like to keep things lively on the pizza stone [don't think too deeply on that one] inspiration comes at you from every direction. This pizza was inspired by a photo of a grilled cheese sandwich on this post. Apparently that's enough for me to go off in a pizza direction.

A vegetarian, savory, pizza with fruit direction.

When I shared my Fresh Pineapple and Shaved Ham with Mascarpone Pizza recently, a friend said her spouse didn't do fruit on pizza. What?  Fruit on pizza rocks!  I'm not talking sweet fruit dessert pizzas. In the multitude of pizzas in my Visual Pizza Recipe Index by Ingredient I do not have any dessert pizzas. I'll eat them, don't get me wrong, I just haven't made any. I'm just not that into it. In my world, fruit on a pizza is not a dessert thing. It's a Savory Pizzas with Fruit thing.

So I'm bringing you yet another savory pizza with fruit. Yet another pizza with apples on it, this one inspired by that grilled cheese sandwich photo and the fact that I had a Costco-sized hunk of gouda cheese in the fridge.

I get cheese obsessions, probably a good thing when I've got a Costco-sized hunk of whatever flavor obsession du jour fromage. Having an ample amount of cheese makes for interesting recipes. I've used gouda in Roasted Sweet Potato and Turkey Sausage Breakfast Casserole and Three Cheese Fast-baked Cauliflower so far. Stay tuned for more, like this vegetarian savory pizza which is lovely for Fall.

For more recipes using apples, please see my Apples & Apple Cider Recipes Collection, part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share or farmer's market. I've got an assortment of other pizza ideas on my Friday Night Pizza Night! Pinterest board and my Visual Pizza Recipe Index.

Apple, Gouda and Pecan Pizza

1 pound pizza dough
olive oil for brushing on the crust
1 apple (Macintosh worked great, whatever you'd like to bite into)
1½ cups shredded Gouda cheese
½ cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit, and consider investing in a pizza stone which will live in your oven to make awesomely crisp crusts. Stretch out dough on an oiled piece of parchment paper. [For more instructions, rock your bad self on over to my Pizza Primer, a visual tutorial on making pizza at home, for more photos]. Brush dough with olive oil. Core and coarsely chop an apple and scatter it across the dough. You may eat a few chunks. Cover with cheese and pecans. Bake, on the parchment paper, for 5 to 8 minutes. Shimmy the crust off the parchment and bake directly on the pizza stone for another 3 to 5 minutes until cheese is bubbly. Cool for a few moments, then slice and serve.