Let The Vegetable Orgy Begin! or The Return of Gary the Toad

Crops Arise! All of the planning, digging, mulching, watering and weeding I’ve undergone since May is about to pay off big time: the vegetables are coming! I’ve been enjoying lettuces and herbs for a few weeks now, but the advent of the big veg really feels like pay dirt. This week I plucked the first good-sized zucchini from the squash beds. Granted, zucchini is so prolific that in a few weeks I’ll be begging neighbors to take the stuff off my hands, but for right now it tastes like sweet, crunchy victory. Without a second thought I knew just where this sweet little zuke was going to end up. On the top of a pizza.

Lacking the free time that afternoon to make dough from scratch, I made a quick request from my noble breadwinner, and on her way home from the office she procured a beautiful loaf of French bread to split into quickie pizzas for dinner.

Another trip to the garden produced some basil, spinach, arugula, and a few red onions—all we would need for a delicious garden pizza that would only take a few moments to make after Mama got home. This is super easy to replicate, I hope you do it right now.

***Please note: no photos exist of these pizzas because we were very hungry, and devoured them so quickly that all was left was a dirty baking sheet and a heavenly smell.

Papa’s Quickie French Bread Garden Pizza

You’ll need:

1 big long huge loaf of crusty French bread, the fresher the better

1 medium onion, or a handful of small young onions that you keep eating, though they aren’t fully grown, you just can’t stay out of ‘em.

1 medium zucchini

Handful of fresh basil leaves

Handful of baby spinach

Handful of arugula

About a cup of shredded Mozzarella cheese

A sprinkling of grated Parmesan cheese

Garlic powder

Oregano flakes (my oregano isn’t up yet. Boooo.)

A cup or so of pizza sauce. Use the kind from a can, or just mix up some tomato paste with garlic powder, oregano and salt.

To make ‘em:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Cut the loaf into thirds, then split the sections lengthwise, lay crust down on a baking sheet. Keeping the pieces small helps you not drag all of the cheese off of the whole thing when you take the first bite, scalding your chin and wrecking the aesthetic of the beautiful, gorgeous pizza.

Spread on the pizza sauce liberally, the bread will soak up a lot of it, use two coats to make sure there is still a little on the surface.

Sprinkle with garlic powder and oregano.

Chop up spinach, arugula, and basil. I saw this sweet technique on TV where you roll the leaves up, then slice them crosswise, to make nice little shreds of the leaves without bruising all the flavor out. Totally works. Lay the shredded greens on, except for the arugula, which we’ll put on later.

Sprinkle the Mozzarella all over. If it doesn’t look like enough, USE MORE. There is no such thing as too much cheese. I firmly believe this.

Slice up the zucchini and onion, place over the cheese.

Sprinkle the Parmesan cheese over the top.

Pop in the oven for about 8 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and starting to get all brown and crispy on the edges (salivating while typing)

When it’s done, toss the shredded arugula on top. For some reason it tastes better if you don’t heat it up.

DEVOUR.

Sidebar: The Return of Gary, the Not-So-Suicidal Toad.

I’m sure you all remember the saga of Gary, the toad who tried to end it all, way back when the garden was just a pile of mulch and a dream. Well, needless to say, Gary did NOT go through with it, I like to think partly because of my intervention. Well, it seems Gary is back, living it up big time in the moist humus under the protective leaves of the potato patch. I caught a peek of him when I tripped as I wheeled Alice’s new big girl bike past the patch and nearly fell on the plants. He hopped out from under the plant I jostled, gave me a stony glance (the toad equivalent of the middle finger) and hopped it right back into the shadows of the patch. Some gratitude, Gary.