I needed a bit of goddess-y feeling in my life lately. Had a weird, mega busy week that was ample in frantic running around and silliness, but kind of lacked for quality sleep, green vegetables, me-time, and overall goodness. End result on my day off? I’m super sniffly, fiery throated, head full of grossness and just kind of cranky in general. Pizza to the rescue! Oh, and lots of ginger tea and rest. Those are important too.
Ask me today what my favourite food is and you’ll probably get a wide-eyed, dragged out, hands gesturing upwards “PIZZAAA!,” spoken like a true 10 year old. I have a lot of favourite actual-composed dishes, ingredients etc, but I eventually always come back to pizza with the widest open arms.
The broccoli stem pesto was born out of resourcefulness. I don’t always enjoy the stems sliced and steamed up with the florets like some, but it always seems like such a large bit to throw away. Saving food from the compost for the win.
A few words on using a pizza stone: it is advantageous if you’re after crisp, but still pillowy crust i.e. you should probably get one soon. I’ve read in various publications that the ideal temperature for cooking up proper napoli-style pizza ranges from 700 to 900 degrees Fahrenheit. Like yours (probably), my oven doesn’t run that hot and I would be a touch nervous taking it over 550 anyway. So! I light up the barbecue and place the stone on the grates. It usually hits around 600 if you have the patience, which is close enough for me.
GREEN GODDESS PIZZA WITH BROCCOLI STEM PESTO
Print the recipe here!
SERVES: 4
NOTES: Definitely try to act quickly once you open the lid of the barbecue to slide the pizza onto the stone. The heat will escape pretty quickly.
BROCCOLI STEM PESTO:
2-3 thick broccoli stems, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup toasted walnuts
1 clove of garlic, peeled and crushed
2-3 sprigs of thyme, leaves removed
5-6 sprigs of flat leaf parsley, tough parts of stem removed
zest of 1 lemon
salt and pepper
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
TOPPINGS/ASSEMBLY:
1lb pizza dough
5-6 asparagus stalks, peeled into ribbons
3 stems of kale, leaves removed and finely chopped
juice of 1 lemon
1-2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
handful of finely chopped chives
1/2 cup crumbled sheep’s milk feta
cornmeal for pizza stone
Heat your barbecue up to 500-600 degrees F (or put your oven to 500). Place a pizza stone on top of the grates to heat up (or on the bottom rack of the oven).
Make the pesto: place chopped broccoli stems, walnuts, garlic, thyme, salt and pepper into the bowl of a food processor. Pulse a few times to finely chop ingredients. Add oil and continue to pulse until a smooth paste is achieved. Set aside.
Roll the dough out to about 1/3-1/2 inch thickness. Dust pizza peel with cornmeal and transfer rolled out dough to the peel. Spread pesto on top of crust. Top with half of the feta.
Toss together the asparagus peels, chopped kale, lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil, chives, salt and pepper. Set aside.
With the pizza peel, quickly transfer the pizza to the barbecue on top of the pizza stone. Close the lid and cook for about 5 minutes, until bottom is lightly browned and dry. Lift the lid and place the asparagus and kale mixture on top along with the remaining feta. Close the lid and cook for another 2 minutes. Remove pizza from the stone with the peel. Cut into slices and serve.
Can you freeze the pesto?
Hi Kate, you can certainly freeze the pesto as long as your pour a little layer of oil on top of it before you pop the lid on and freeze it. The oil helps to maintain the colour and integrity of it.
-L
It looks wonderful. This is what you create when you are super sniffly, fiery throated, head full of grossness and just kind of cranky in general? I am impressed. Hope you are feeling much better.
First off.. YUM! I am in a pizza kind of mood and I think this would be an amazing recipe to try. Secondly, I have never thought of putting my pizza stone on the grill, but now I want to try. Question… is it safe to let the flame touch the stone? Is it silly that I am even asking that? I would love to know if there are any special tricks to ensure the stone doesn’t crack. Let me know if there is something special that needs to be done.
Beautiful, as always! xo
I love my pizza stone! I feel like I can tell a significant difference when I use it to bake up pizzas. Your recipe feels so SPRING. Pizza solves so many of the world’s problems (or maybe just my own, and yours too heheh)
I used to snub the stems too until I had a chef here locally tell me to peel the outside skin and then shave the stem into ribbons, steam, and mix with pasta. Huge improvement. I’ve tried this method too with pasta, but not on pizza. Very, very cool.
I’ve been reading Tamar Adler’s An Everlasting Meal, where she advocates using every last bit of vegetables and I love the idea of using the broccoli stems for a pesto. I’ve made pesto out of so much…. beet greens being my most favorite…. and recently took the stems from a whole box of rapini and sauteed them with onion to make a pilaf. It was delightful.
But…. I’m off topic from pizza. From broccoli. And now I’m hungry for pizza, and for broccoli.
Never would have thought of using broccoli stems for pesto. I hate tossing them out, now I know better! :) Love all the healthy goodness in this pizza!
This looks delicious and fresh! Very beautiful. Xx
This is so full of goodness! Yum!
I just recently made a broccoli pesto, and it was delicious. Thus I affirm your choice wholeheartedly. This pizza looks wonderful! Hope all of its green goodness brought you right back to normal!
I love your comment about sounding like a 10 year when it comes to pizza because that is totally me. I usually jump up and down, clapping my hands together chanting “pizza! pizza! pizza!” I also have to say, love the use of the broccoli stems!