Unless you are uber lucky you probably don't have a wood burning pizza oven, but roasting the vegetables for pizza give it that gourmet wood-burning oven taste. Roasting vegetables provides a flavor boost, sweetens the vegetable, and browns the outside. When in doubt about what to do with any vegetable - and I do mean any vegetable - roast it to enhance the flavor (plus it's a bit of an adventure when you try it on a vegetable you've never roasted before!).
Roasted Vegetable PIzza
1 red onion, thinly sliced
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1 cup broccoli florets
1 cup fresh spinach, roughly chopped
1 recipe "ricotta cheese"
1/2 to 1 cup pizza sauce
2 pizza crusts (I like Engine 2 brand whole wheat crusts)
Preheat oven to 450.
First roast the garlic bulb. To do this, slice off the "top" of the garlic bulb (not the pointy end) to expose a bit of the cloves. Wrap entire bulb in foil and place directly on the oven rack. Roast for 30 minutes or until bulb is soft and can be easily pierced with a knife.
Next, roast the vegetables. Spread each vegetable on its own cookie sheet and roast as follows: mushrooms - 15 minutes; onions - 10 minutes; broccoli - 7 minutes. As each is done, remove to a bowl and set aside.
When all vegetables and garlic have finished roasting, spread half of the "ricotta cheese" on each pizza crust using spatula. Spread the pizza sauce on top of the ricotta using a spoon. Top th sauce with the chopped spinach. Squeeze all of the garlic out of the roasted bulb and distribute around the top of the pizza. Finally add the roasted vegetables. Bake the pizzas in a 450 oven directly on oven rack until crisp (check your pizza crust package for directions as oven temperatures and times may vary). Cut the pie into slices and enjoy!
