Mexican Pizza!

Sometimes I am not sure where inspiration comes from.  This recipe, however, started because I thought it would be a great idea to buy some pizza dough from Russo's in Watertown, which by the way is the most amazing place ever!  We rarely cook pizza at home, but we had recently visited Nick's grandfather, who is famous for his pizza, and I guess it got me thinking about attempting it at home myself.

The Ingredients

Wanting to switch things up a bit, I used the black beans we had in our cupboard and decided to try a Mexican Pizza.



The Necessities (adapted from Food and Wine - Spike Mendelsohn)

• 1 cup canned black beans, rinsed
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped jarred roasted red peppers
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• Kosher salt
• 1 pound pizza dough
• 1 cup shredded Cheddar and Mozzarella mixed cheeses
• 1/2 cup grape tomatoes, halved
• 1 cup shredded butter lettuce
• 1 avocado sliced
• 2 tablespoons of corn salsa

To begin, I started to make the "sauce," which required putting the black beans, red peppers, chili powder, and minced garlic in the food processor and pureeing it.  After a bit of mixing down I added some salt.

Sauce!

Pureed beans and other goodness

I ended up with a beautiful brick-colored sauce and set it aside.  Next, I greased a baking sheet and rolled out the pizza dough into a rectangle.  I then pushed the dough out a bit more until it reached closer to the edges.  I spread a little olive oil out on the dough and then took the puree and spread it out over the top of the dough, leaving about a half inch to an inch around the edges so the crust could cook up.

Ready for toppings...

After the sauce, I added the cheese (I love loads of cheese on pizza, which is why there may be a bit more than the suggested cup!) and sliced grape tomatoes.  I placed the pizza in a 450 degree oven for about 12 minutes until the cheese was bubbling.

Ready for the oven

While the pizza was cooking I chopped up some butter lettuce and sliced the avocado.

More Toppings!

Once the extra toppings were ready, the pizza was done cooking.  The cheese was good and bubbly and the crust was getting crispy!

Done Cooking

I then sprinkled the corn salsa and the avocado slices over the top of the pizza.

Almost ready....

The final step was to top the pizza with the butter lettuce.  One tip - cook the pizza on the flip side of the baking sheet, otherwise, it proves very difficult to cut as the pizza cutter got stuck on the edges.

Pizza is done!

This pizza was delicious!  The black bean sauce was a great substitution for the traditional red sauce.  The red peppers and the chili powder added a great kick to each bite.

Served!

This pizza is so customizable - it's like nachos but with crispy crust instead of chips.  Really anything you put on nachos would work here.  I think some jalapeños and some shredded chicken could make a great addition, and other flavors of salsa would mix up the overall flavor.

While we got our crust from the grocery store, your local pizza place will generally sell dough (all rolled out and ready to go) for pretty cheap, making pizza making at home even easier.

Do you make pizza at home?  Where do you get your crust?