Roasted Veggies & Goat Cheese Pizza

If you read this blog on the regular you might be noticing a pattern with pizza.  I'm really into making pizza dough to have on hand for dinner. The possibilities are endless & plus, who doesn't like pizza? 

Chris brought back one of the largest butternut squashes I've ever seen from the farmer's market so I felt the need to incorporate that into a dinner & in this case a pizza.  I'm not going to lie, you have to put some work in to get what you want out of a butternut squash. It's pretty hard so zap it in the microwaved before you attempt to cook it. Since mine was on the larger side I microwaved it for about 5 minutes. Then you can cut it in half length ways.  It has some seeds in it that you'll need to scoop out. There is also a pretty tough shell on this veggie so you'll need to peel that off.  Now you're ready to chop. Do your best to make even sized pieces. The smaller the pieces the quicker they will cook. I only used half of the squash for this recipe but I chopped up the rest of it & sealed it in a food storage bag for use later in the week - which mean less prep time for round two.

My favorite part of this pizza is smearing the warm goat cheese all over it when it comes out of the oven. The tang from the goat cheese & the sweetness of the roasted veggies is dinner worthy!

Ingredients

• 3 cups butternut squash, cubed (I used half of a large squash)
• 2 cups eggplant, cubed (I used 1 medium-sized eggplant)
• 1 cup onion, roughly chopped
• 9 cloves  garlic, left whole or rough chop
• 1 small log of goat cheese
• olive oil
• salt
• pepper
• 1/4 cup fresh basil, chiffonade
• pizza dough (store bought or homemade)
• flour for rolling the dough out

Make it!

1. Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or tin foil.
2. Toss all veggies in a bowl. Season with salt & pepper. Drizzle with about a 1/4 cup of olive oil.  Toss well.
3. Lay veggies out on sheet pans in even layers.
4. Roast in the oven for about 25 minutes. 
5. In the mean time clean up your work space.
6. On a large floured surface roll out the pizza dough in the shape of your pizza stone.
7. Remove the veggies from the oven when fork tender.
8. Place your pizza stone in the oven for about 10 minutes.
9. Carefully remove the heated stone & transfer the pizza dough to the stone.  You'll probably hear a sizzle, this means the bottom of the crust is crisping.
10. Drizzle the pizza dough with olive oil.
11. Using a slotted spoon place the veggies in an even layer in the middle of the pizza leaving about an inch for the crust.
12. Bake in the oven (at 450) for about 12 minutes.
13. Remove pizza from the oven & crumble goat cheese over the pizza, return it to the oven to cook for another 5 minutes.
14. Remove form oven when the goat cheese looks super soft & the crust is golden.
15. Sprinkle with fresh basil.
16. Slice pizza into eight slices. Smear the goat cheese around your slice & enjoy!