Putting it together: how Annalena makes a meal: eggplant pizza

This one, ragazzi, is a bit of an experiment.  Annalena dedicates it to all of her readers who look at the recipes and WANT to cook, but wonder, perhaps  "HOW does she put it together?  I could never do that?"

Yes , ragazzi, you can.  And Annalena is going to show you how, using recipes that are on this blog.

We are , again, using an ingredient which is about to fade from our local markets:  eggplant.  One of Annalena's favorites.  And perfect here, because in case you want to make your own pizza, and you have a vegetarian with which to share it, there are few better substitutes for meat, than eggplant. 

Now, Annalena is going to give you instructions on how to do this, start to finish, in about an hour and a half.    If you do things the way she does though, and make the ingredients separately, it will take you far less time.  In other words, when Annalena has space, she makes each of these ingredients. Then, she just pulls it together.

Would that the rest of her life were that easy.

Ok, so here's how we're going to order it.  First, we are going to cook the eggplant.  And this is a recipe that all of her health freak fans are going to love, because we're all used to frying breaded eggplant.  Nope, not here.     First, preheat your oven to 425.  While that is happening, get a really big eggplant, and peel and slice it, into rounds, of say 1/3 of an inch.    Now, follow the recipe for oven fried tomatoes, which follows, only use bread crumbs instead of cracker crumbs:

http://annalenacantacena.blogspot.com/2012/09/seasons-change-oven-fried-tomatoes-and.html

The next step is one you could start before you make the eggplant, or now.  In fact, maybe it is better to start it first.  We're going to make the sauce.    And it's going to take less than an hour.  You remember this one, yes?

http://annalenacantacena.blogspot.com/2012/06/relearning-annalena-rethinks-her-tomato.html


So, now you have your sauce and your eggplant.  What about your crust?  Here again, Annalena to the rescue.  Again, perhaps this is best done first of all, since it needs the time to rise:

http://annalenacantacena.blogspot.com/2007/11/pizza.html


So, if you were doing this in some kind of order, you might make the crust dough first (and you'd have enough for two pies), let it rise, and put the sauce on the stove, while you prepped the eggplant. 


If you go through the actual amount of WORK you do here, it will come to less than about 20 minutes.  Seriously.  You can handle this.

Now, roll out your dough, spread some of that sauce over it (and you have plenty to use for other things), put slices of eggplant on top of that, and then your cheese.  As always, use the good stuff.  With eggplant, Annalena prefers smoked mozzarella, but it's YOUR pizza, not hers.  So use what you like.  If you have some fresh basil leaves around,  as they say  "smoke em if you got em."

And there's your pizza.  It's gonna be good, hot, and you will thank Annalena immensely. 

Next time around: perhaps we will visit the kohlrabi, as promised awhile ago (Annalena loses her grip sometime),  but just maybe we will be investigating the case of the disintegrating quince.

Yes, ragazzi, it is true.  Annalena is in need of a life.