Potato-Tomato Pizza

Most of the pizzas I make are old-school tomato-based pizzas with cheese. But now and then I get creative with smaller pizzas. For some reason, I'm perfectly happy being wacky with little pies.

This time, the idea started with potatoes, and I thought that a combo of white and blue potatoes would be pretty.

I thought about adding rosemary, but changed my mind. Rosemary sounded too ... usual. So I chose basil instead. I used basil oil on the pizza and fresh basil for finishing.

Of course I made my own dough, but you could us your own favorite recipe, or even buy dough.

Potato-Tomato Pizza

1 recipe pizza dough
2 medium white potatoes
2 medium blue potatoes
2 tomatoes
Salt and pepper
Basil oil (or olive oil)
Fresh basil

Preheat your oven to as high as it will go - usually 550 degrees. If you have a pizza stone, have that in the oven as it preheats. If you don't have a pizza stone, a cast iron griddle works well, or you can use an upturned cast iron frying pan (you will be cooking on the bottom of the pan.)

If you don't have other options, you can use a baking sheet, but the pizzas will take a little longer to cook, and probably won't be as crisp.

Heat a small pot of water to boiling, and add salt as you would for cooking pasta. Slice the potatoes thinly and drop them into the boiling water. (A mandoline is perfect for this.) Cook just a minute or two, until they're barely cooked through. Remove them from the water and let them drain.

Slice the tomatoes thinly. If the slices are large, cut the slices in half. Tear the basil into small pieces

Divide the dough into 3 pieces, form each piece into a ball, and flatten the balls. With a rolling pin, roll them into 8-inch rounds.

Top the dough with overlapping slices of potato, then add tomato slices. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, as desired, then drizzle with a bit of basil oil.

Bake the pizzas on the preheated pizza stone at 550 degrees for about 8 minutes. As soon as the pizza is done, top it with some of the fresh basil. Slice and serve.

This has been submitted to Yeastspotting.