Flours and Fudge: Shaved Asparagus Pizza

I am not good with pizza...or rather pizza dough. I was going to make my own dough, and I'm somewhat glad I didn't. I bought the pre-made dough from the pizza counter at Shaw's. Maybe I didn't let it sit long enough, but manipulating dough is a tough and highly annoying job.

May is asparagus month, and I love asparagus, so I rummaged through some recipes on my To Make list and came up with this one. In the future, I may pre-bake the pizza crust for a few minutes so the top gets a chance to cook more. I had to put this into the oven a few times to get it thoroughly cooked through, and I had to put it back in once more after cutting it, which bothers me.

Shaving (or peeling) asparagus is an awkward task until you get into a groove of doing it. My first few stalks kept breaking. I finally laid them down on the cutting board and peeled them, that seemed to work for me. This was also the first time I got to use my Pampered Chef pizza stone that my Gram bought me for Christmas. I got this recipe from my most-used source fore recipe's, Annie's Eats. Don't click the link to her blog under my recipe title....she's an amazing cook (and doctor....and mother of 2...) and her pizza came out much prettier than mine.

Oh. and before we jump into the recipe, let me just say that transferring the pizza from the counter to the preheated stone was.....interesting. Now, maybe it's my novice chef skills and experience....but it was not easy. At one point I squished my pizza, and then I had to finagled a floured thin cutting mat under most of it and tried to slide it onto that and then onto the stone. That seemed to work. I need one of those giant pizza spatulas.

Shaved Asparagus Pizza
from Annie's Eats

Pizza dough (homemade or store bought)
olive oil for brushing
4 oz. fresh mozzarella cheese, thinly sliced
8 oz. asparagus
3 oz. spreadable garlic and herb cheese, such as Boursin (I used Alouette)
Kosher salt
Pepper

1. Preheat the oven and a pizza stone at 500˚ F for at least 30 minutes. Roll out the pizza dough into a 12-14 inch round. Lightly brush the surface of the dough with olive oil.

2. Cut the tough woody stems off the ends of the asparagus spears. Use a vegetable peeler to shave the spears into ribbons. It will look like an awful lot of asparagus, but it will cook down in the oven, so you should use more than you think you should.

3. Place the sliced mozzarella over the pizza dough in an even layer. Pile the asparagus shavings over the top of the mozzarella. Dot the surface of the pizza with the garlic herb cheese. Season with kosher salt and pepper. (I skipped the salt and pepper)

4. Transfer the pizza to the preheated pizza stone and bake until the cheese is melted and bubbling and the crust is lightly browned, about 12 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly before slicing and serving.