Fall Woodfired Pizza

This week to incorporate slicing into a meal, I decided to make a fall inspired pizza with a variety of sliced mushrooms and onions along with diced apples and toasted pecans. I went home for the weekend so I was able to borrow my aunt and uncle's portable pizza oven to cook the pizza using a woodfire.

I used a variety of mushrooms including button mushrooms, portobello and cremini. First I sliced the mushrooms and then gave them a light saute in butter. 

Once I had everything prepped, I started to roll out my pizza dough that I had made earlier in the morning. The recipe that I used for the dough was by Ina Garten, and I chose to use that dough because it is the recipe that my mom has been using for as long as I can remember. After the dough was rolled out, I topped it with a squash and plain yogurt sauce I made using butternut squash I bought from the farmers market and roasted the day before. On top of the sauce I added my sauteed mushrooms, onions, diced apples and toasted pecans and added some cheese. The cheese blend I used was a mix of mozzarella gouda.

Overall, I really enjoyed my pizza and am excited to eat the leftovers! Cooking a pizza using a wood-fire pizza oven was new to me and something that will definitely need to be practiced as it was hard to not overly burn the crust. I would also try using a different flour than the all-purpose flour that we had on hand because I know my aunt and uncle buy special flour which helps the pizza to cook more evenly and not stick to the pizza peel. In the future, I think that it would be good to salt the onions and mushrooms as I saute them so I wouldn't feel like I needed to salt my individual slices of pizza. Another thing I would do in the future is add more mushrooms and cut some of the pieces (like from the portobello mushrooms) smaller so that when you took a bite, you don't pull all the toppings off from another area of the pizza. Finally, I think a good balsamic reduction would add a nice pop of acidity which would also help to remedy the salt issue. Overall, the feedback I received from family was overall positive, and just being home to enjoy a good meal with people I love made the pizza taste even better.