Summer Peach and Basil Pizza

If it is an odd or unusual combination of ingredients on pizza, I immediately want to try it. I spent the majority of my childhood only eating cheese pizza but once I realized that red pizza sauce was optional, pizza re-categorized itself in my mind to be a tasty way of getting bread and other toppings (aka, a sandwich) into my mouth.

Tom is still pretty basic when it comes to his pizza topping choices. We've branched out to some stranger things, like cheeseburger pizza where he picked off the lettuce and tomato, and crab dip pizza, which he said was weird so I know when I want to try an unusual combination of toppings on pizza, that means I get my very own pizza and I have to make a cheese or pepperoni one for him.

I stupidly bought 10" pizza pans which are relatively useless for the pizza dough recipe I use. I'd need to make 4+ pizzas if I wanted the dough to fit properly and well, ain't nobody got time for that! so I figured now was the best time to find a new dough recipe, and a thin crust one was just what I wanted to try.

Anyway, all of this manages to fit in perfectly with this month's Improv Challenge, which was actually a complete accident. I wanted pizza, I went searching on Pinterest and found one with peaches and basil that I thought would be mouthwateringly delicious. A few days later, I received the email from Kristen with the challenge foods - peaches and herbs. It just doesn't work out better than that, does it?

I'll share the thin crust pizza dough recipe tomorrow so don't forget to come back and check that out!

Summer Peach and Basil Pizza
Source: Love and Olive Oil
Servings: 1 10-12 inch pizza
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Ingredients:

• • ½ batch thin crust dough
  • ¼ cup balsamic vinegar
  • 1 tbsp. olive oil
  • 2 oz. fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced
  • 1 ripe peach, peeled, pitted and thinly sliced
  • ¼ cup fresh basil, sliced

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees or as high as it will go. Place baking stones in the oven to preheat as well.
2. Add the balsamic vinegar to a small saucepan and heat over medium heat until simmering. Reduce heat to medium-low and allow to simmer until the mixture has reduced by half/.
3. Place the pizza dough on a lightly floured sheet of parchment paper. Roll out the dough to your desired thickness.
4. Brush the pizza dough with olive oil, then arrange mozzarella and peach slices over the dough.
5. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the crust is lightly browned and the cheese has melted. Drizzle the balsamic reduction over the pizza and then sprinkle with that basil.

I maybe ate the entire 10" pizza myself. In my defense, I had rolled out my dough super thin so it was practically the same as eating a tortilla or flat bread. I could not get over how delicious the peaches were when baked and how nicely they paired with the mozzarella cheese and basil. I didn't notice that the recipe says to drizzle the balsamic reduction over the pizza twice. I did it before baking, which made for a much less pretty presentation, so if you are going for looks as well as taste, I would follow my directions as above to drizzle after the pizza has baked.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to eat this toppings combination for the rest of the summer.