Coming back from Europe, there wasn't much in the house by way of food, aside from some veggies mouldering in the fridge and half a quart of whole milk. Ed has been in Vermont a lot lately, and eating up there, so I guess it wasn't entirely his fault that the food situation was so dire. Anyway, he went off to the midatlantic somewhere this weekend to test radios for the upcoming North American Orienteering Championships (he installs these radio gizmos at a certain control, and that gives information to the announcer about who is in what place at an intermediate control. But, getting these things set up so that there is a signal back to the stadium can be a bit delicate, and takes pre-planning), leaving me on my own for dinner. Since I made eggs last night, I figured I probably shouldn't do that again, but I wasn't feeling all that inspired staring at a bundle of beet stems whose leaves had long since been used. They were sorta shriveled at the edges, but at least they were pink and crunchy in the middle. I also was feeling a wave of laziness, that totally kept me from going to the store. Then it hit me - put it on a pizza!
But pizza needs cheese. No matter, I have that leftover whole milk. Within minutes, the dough was kneaded, and I had some milk heating to turn into ricotta. Meanwhile, I caramelized an onion and sweated the salvageable parts of the beet stems.
Once the milk was close to boiling, I added the vinegar, watched it curdle, and dumped it into a cheesecloth over a colander. That drained while I finished the onions and beets, and stretched the pizza dough. I made it with whole wheat, so it tasted too dry, despite smearing the top with some butternut squash seed oil we've had living in our pantry for a while. Ah, well. Onions and beets onto the pizza, I squeezed the ricotta to hurry its draining, crumbled it with my fingers on top of the pizza, and cooked it for 15min or so at 450. Voila! pizza!
Coulda used some goopier cheese... at least it filled my growling belly.
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