Bittman's pizza

I have a love hate relationship with Mark Bittman. I really do like many of his recipe ideas, the simplicity with which he thinks, the way he throws ingredients together, without ever noting a measurement. I especially love his long lists that make me want to make 100 different salads or whatever.

But I found his book on being green to be both sanctimonious and late to the game. Kind of an insufferable combination.

That aside...I saw his mushroom white pizza recipe this morning and decided to go for it. And it was fabulous. OK - so it's the Bitten blog but the article is not by Bittman. I didn't know he had guest bloggers.

At any rate I mainly followed the recipe - here were my adulterations.
1. whole wheat pizza dough from TJs
2. both button and sliced baby bella mushrooms, and onions
3. I used about 2 tablespoons butter/olive oil combined total
4. I added a touch of truffle oil because I had some
5. I sprinkled just a bit of parmasean flakes on the top
6. used half and half instead of heavy cream based on what was in fridge
7. I used up some cut up yellow pepper by sprinkling them around but that was just because I had them sitting around.

The only thing I would change is that I should have been far more generous with the parm flakes - I could barely taste it and needed the sharp saltiness to balance out the creaminess of the mushroom sauce and sweet caramelized onions. Other notes...the veggies take a while to cook to the point of being "dry." That could be done in advance. You don't need much cream but it makes a huge and positive impact on the taste. And I probably doubled the veggie portion. I like a high veggie to dough ratio.

I ate it with a salad with a light orange vinegar and olive oil dressing. It really was screaming for toasted hazelnuts but I was so hungry and I so often burn nuts I'm trying toast that I just had to forgo them and eat. But the fancier salad and the pizza would make a nice vegetarian dinner, maybe with a little roasted squash on the side as well. Oh by the way, despite the dainty looking photo I had about 3 pieces. Normally I only have two but I hadn't had an afternoon snack so I was very hungry.

For his Monday dinner pick, Alex requested yellow pepper white pizza, which he stayed at karate too late to eat, and I made regular pizza with the remaining dough.