Ratatouille pizza

I had half the pizza dough from last time in the freezer, so I decided to use it up with some of the veggies I'd just gotten from the little farm stand by the university. I decided that a ratatouille-like combination of veggies would be good, so I sliced everything thinly and layered it over some of the basil hummus/pesto stuff and under some ricotta salata. Which you could make on your own, all it takes is milk and lemon juice, but the small block of it at the store only cost me $3.36, and I only used half.

The dough was my standard pizza dough:
1C lukewarm water
1 tbs yeast
1 tbs sugar
1/4C olive oil
1 tbs salt
~3C flour

Dissolve the yeast and sugar into the water, and once the yeast is proofed, mix in everything else. Keep adding flour a cup at a time, until the dough is dry enough to knead with your hands. Knead for 5-10 minutes, then let it rest on a floured surface while you prep the veggies.

This dough freezes really well - I used a version that had been frozen for a couple weeks, and that really made it stretchy, so I could stretch the pizza crust rather than roll it out. Something about gluten continuing to develop even in the freezer? I wouldn't know, talking out of my ass.

Ratatouille pizza
1/4 of a medium-sized eggplant
1/4 of a zucchini
1/4 of a summer squash
1 tomato
~1/2C pesto, optional
~1C crumbled ricotta salada
Kosher salt
pizza dough

Slice the veggies very thinly. Salt both sides of them, and let them sit for 10 minutes, or more if you have time. Do this with the tomato, too. This pulls out some of the water, and keeps them from making the pizza crust soggy.

While they sit there sweating, you can roll out the pizza dough. Mine was enough to fill a regular-sized cookie sheet. Once you've rolled/stretched/cajoled your pizza dough into a large enough shape, sprinkle some coarse cornmeal onto the pan, then gently put the dough down, stretching to make it fit the corners. For a 3C batch of dough, half the batch stretched to a full sheet makes a very thin-crusted pizza. That is how I like it, but some people (ahem. Ed.) like thicker crusts. In their cases, I'd use all the dough in one pan.

Spread pesto over the pizza. I used up some of that pesto/hummus stuff I'd made. If you don't have pesto, I'd recommend at least spreading some olive oil over the crust, it'll just make things taste better.

By now the veggies should be done sweating. Rinse them in a colander, then dry them with a towel. Yeah, its weird, but it keeps the dough from getting soggy. Spread the towel out on a counter, lay a batch of rinsed veggies on the towel, then put another towel on top and push down to extract more water. Do this for all the veggies. Yeah, it'll take 5 minutes, but its worth it.

Layer the sliced veggies over the pesto, in whatever artistic manner you feel like adopting. I did rows of different veggies. Sprinkle some more olive oil on top of that. Crumble the ricotta on top.

Bake at 500F for 10-20 minutes. Depends on the thickness of the crust. The cheese should be slightly browned on top when you pull out the pizza. Just a warning, this cheese doesn't melt at all, so its likely to fall off when you eat the pizza. You could try putting it under the veggies, or just use mozzarella like normal pizzas. This was an experiment, and I thought it tasted good.