Featured Recipe: Beet Pizza (Beetza!)

Andrea Bemis, the foodie, farmer, and blogger, is coming out with a beautiful new cookbook, and she’s sharing three delicious recipes with Fitbit readers. When beets come into season in the summer, slap down some pizza dough, and pile on the veggies. Don’t forget to check out Dishing Up the Dirt, her collection of simple recipes for celebrating the seasons.

 

Beet, Walnut & Kale Pizza (Beetza!)

Recipe and photo by Andrea Bemis

I didn’t grow up eating beets and wasn’t very familiar with how to cook them when I first began experimenting in the kitchen. My motivation to give them an honest try came after a particularly long, wet, and dreary afternoon back on Hutchins Farm. I had spent hours harvesting hundreds of pounds of beets, and I had just about had it. I decided right then and there (in the pouring rain) that I was going to head back to our kitchen and cook beets for the first time in my life. On that particular evening, Taylor was craving pizza, and I was craving the urge to love beets. Thankfully, this was the result.

You’ll notice I don’t peel the beets in this recipe. I typically don’t peel my vegetables—I find the skin and peel can offer another depth of flavor and an extra nutritional boost. That being said, if the vegetable isn’t super fresh, the skin can get bitter, so I recommend tasting first and peeling if needed.

3 medium-sized beets, scrubbed and cut into ¼-inch chunks
4 tablespoons walnut oil
1 medium-sized yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 clove of garlic, chopped
fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 ounces fresh goat cheese
1 bunch of kale, stems trimmed, leaves broken into bite-sized pieces
1 ball (a little less than 2 pounds) of whole-wheat pizza dough
¼ cup walnuts, roughly chopped
freshly grated Parmesan cheese
pinch of crushed red pepper flakes

Place the beets in a saucepan and cover them with water. Bring the liquid to a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer until the beets are fork-tender, 10 to 15 minutes. Drain and rinse them.

While the beets are cooking, heat 2 tablespoons of the walnut oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until it is soft and fragrant, about 8 minutes. Set it aside.

Preheat the oven to 450°F and line a baking sheet with parchment. Place the cooked beets in a food processor with 1 tablespoon of the walnut oil, the garlic, a pinch of sea salt, pepper to taste, and 2 tablespoons of the goat cheese. Whirl away until smooth, scraping down the sides of the food processor as necessary. In a large bowl toss the kale with the remaining 1 tablespoon of the walnut oil and lightly massage the kale until it becomes tender and turns bright green.

Roll out your pizza dough on a lightly floured work surface. Transfer the dough to the baking sheet. Spread about 1 cup of the beet sauce evenly over the dough, followed by the onions, kale, walnuts, goat cheese, as much Parmesan as you like, and the red pepper flakes. Bake until the crust is golden, the kale is crisp, and the cheese is bubbling, 13 to 15 minutes. Cut the pizza into wedges and serve.

 

Excerpted from Dishing Up the Dirt by Andrea Bemis. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.