Pear and Gorgonzola Pizza

There are basically two ways to do pizza: 

Option 1:  Dollar slice topped with leftover taco meat and hot sauce, paired with Colt 45.

Option 2:  Do it yourself.  

Guess which option we went for.  If you said option 1, you are correct! ...but we didn't document that one.  Graham and actually got some pictures of option 2, so here ya go:

Pear and Gorgonzola Pizza, topped with Fresh Arugula

Pictured: not Leftover Taco Dollar Slice

First off, Procure Ingredients!

Gorgonzola, mozzarella, pears, arugula, olive oil, garlic, semolina flour, wine, and D'oh!

Let's suppose you have some store-bought, precooked dough already at hand.  If that is the case, throw it out, slap yourself, and start over.  Now, either make your own dough, or if you're lazy like us, buy some from your local pizzeria (in this case Luigi's on 88th and 1st). 

Toss that dough:

Preferably accompanied by Italian opera.

And in case you haven't already, pour a glass of wine.

What's the point of cooking without wine?

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to around 400 F.  If you have a pizza stone (which you absolutely should) throw it in the oven to heat up.  While the oven warms up, spread out some oil and garlic on the evenly spread dough.  Top with a layer of thinly sliced mozzarella, then sliced pears, gorgonzola, and arugula.  A little freshly ground black pepper never hurt either.

Transfer to stone once oven is pre-heated.

Once constructed, throw it in the oven for 15-20 minutes.  While you wait, have another glass or three of wine:

This is actually a different photo, Graham is just that good at pouring wine.

Leftover pears?  Sprinkle on some cinnamon and brown sugar, and throw them in a pan with a healthy portion of butter.

These'll only take 5-10 minutes.  You can throw them in while you eat the pizza.

Has it been 15-20 minutes yet?  If no, have some more wine.  If yes, take the pizza out of the oven and let it cool a few minutes.  Then have some more wine.

Or burn off all your tastebuds if you can't wait.

 A few tips to keep in mind (which we ignored):  1. Don't use too much oil as it will pool up and boil in the middle of the pizza.  2. Make sure to apply cheese almost to edge of pizza, as the crust will rise and expand.  3. Add the arugula about halfway through cooking so that it won't shrivel up and lose its flavor.  4. Don't forget the pears!

Like apple pie without the crust.  And made with pears.

The end.  No animals were harmed in the making of this post!  Look for more pizzas in the future.