Summer Pizza

We love you Denton Square

I'm thinking this pizza is going to be on repeat all summer. It's light, fresh, and colorful. Perfect for the season. We enjoyed it last night with our family on the Denton Square listening to some.... interesting tunes ;) Guys, don't be intimidated by the fillo pastry. To be honest, I botched it up -- and it still came out great. This is the first time I've used fillo pastry dough, and seems to be very forgiving when laid flat. Maybe with pastries or fancy appetizers it would be a lot harder to work with, but for pizza it's easy.


Serves: 2 

(Makes one large pizza, about 8 slices)

Ingredients:
8 sheets fillo pastry, thawed
1/2 cup olive oil (coconut oil works just fine as well)
1/2 white onion
5 red tomatoes
1 cup yellow baby tomatoes
1 large handful kalamata olives
Approx. 5-6 sprigs of fresh oregano (1 tablespoon if using dried)
6-7 leaves fresh basil
Salt and pepper 

Preheat oven to 375f

Start by setting up your dough-making station. Follow the package instructions on thawing the fillo dough. Once thawed, you'll need some melted coconut oil or olive oil, poured into a bowl and a pastry brush. Start with a 1/2 cup of oil and add more as needed. 

Here's what I'm talking about in case you've never used it before

Step one: layer. Grease a large cookie sheet with oil. Lay one sheet of dough on the pan, brush with oil, lay another sheet, and repeat the process until you've gone through 8 sheets. Don't worry if the sheets break a little. When cooked the dough is very flakey, so it doesn't matter at all if you have a torn piece here or there. However, if you want to avoid this, I'd suggest taking a damp kitchen towel and laying it over the dough while you work so it doesn't dry out. The first minute and a half of this video is helpful in case you need a visual of this. 

Make sure the last sheet is also brushed with olive oil before adding your toppings.

{{This pizza is divine without cheese, but if you prefer, you could add grated mozzarella or parmesan to the dough now before adding your veggies.}}

Slice half an onion very thin. Over medium heat, sauté onions in a couple glugs of olive oil until translucent and fragrant. 

While the onions are cooking, give a rough slice to the red tomatoes and halve the yellow ones. {You can mix and match whatever tomatoes you want. These were just the kind I thought we'd enjoy and that were available at the store.}

Give a rough chop to a large handful of kalamata olives.

Remove onions from the heat and scatter them all over the fillo dough. Lay tomato slices evenly, then fill in any gaps with the olives. Chop your herbs finely and scatter across the top. Sprinkle the whole thing with salt and pepper and a drizzle of olive oil and bake in the oven for 25 minutes. 

summer pizza: post slicing and stuffing in tupperware for our picnic ;)

The end result is a flaky, slightly sweet, slightly salty dish that would be perfect as an appetizer or as the main star along side a fresh salad or summer fruits. Slice it up and enjoy!

Reaghan says: "dat pisa wuh nummiee!!!"