These mini pizzas don't skimp on flavor. They're loaded with lemon zest, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and a hint of garlic powder.
It’s fall, which really means 2 things. It’s not only pumpkin season, but it’s also cookbook season! Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing recipes from some of my favorite new cookbooks. Today’s recipe comes from How to Celebrate Everything, by Jenny Rosenstrach of Dinner a Love Story. I’ve been reading her blog for years and I had the pleasure of meeting her (and having a total fan-girl moment) a few months ago.
I have to say – I love this book because it’s one of those cookbooks that you want to snuggle up with and read from cover to cover. For starters, I just love her writing. Reading this book is like having coffee with a good friend. Jenny talks all about how she creates family food rituals not just for the big holidays (although there are recipes for those too) but for the smaller life events that are no less important. Events like a weekend walk to the farmers market that ends with tomato sandwiches, an end-of-the-school-year celebration with a neighborly “bus stop social”, birthday breakfasts, pizza Fridays, etc, etc, etc.
Reading her book inspired me to create some new rituals of my own because I realized how many rituals I actually don’t have… that is unless you count Jack’s birthday carrot cake, the butternut squash soup I make on the first day of fall, or the wine I drink to celebrate 5pm. But, hey, I guess those DO count, but there’s always room for more!
Now on to the recipe! In the book this is an apres ski meal. Since we don’t have mountains (or snow) in Texas, I just decided that broccolini + chickpeas + pizza (with lots of lemon zest) sounded like a delicious way to celebrate Monday.
I took a big shortcut and baked my pizzas onto pre-made mini naan breads – see her recipe below to make a big rectangular pizza using real dough 🙂
Next on my list – these popovers! How good do they look?
Click here to get the book! We’re also giving away a copy – to enter, leave a comment below telling me about one of your favorite family food rituals. The giveaway will close this Friday. Open to U.S. residents only.
Jenny's Broccolini Chickpea Pizza
- 4 tablespoons good-quality olive oil, plus more for brushing
- 1 16-ounce ball store-bought pizza dough, preferably sitting out at room temerature for about 15 minutes to warm up a bit and rise.
- 1 8-ounce ball fresh mozzarella cheese, thinly sliced
- 1 large bunch of broccolini (about 8 ounces), roughly chopped (including stems and leaves)
- 1 cup cooked chickpeas, drained, rinsed and dried
- 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- ⅓ cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
- Preheat the oven to 475°F. Using your fingers or a pastry brush, grease a 17x12 inch rimmed baking sheet with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Drop the pizza dough into the center of the baking sheet and, using your fingers, press out and flatten the dough so it spreads as close as possible to all four corners. Cover the dough with the mozzarella slices, leaving a ½ inch border around the perimeter.
- In a large bowl, toss the broccolini, chickpeas, lemon zest, and garlic powder. Season with salt and pepper to taste and drizzle in the remaining 3 tablespoons olive oil, then give it all another toss.
- Using your hands, add the broccoli-chickpea mixture on top of the mozzarella in an even layer. Shower with the grated Parm and brush the exposed edge of the crust with a little oil.
- Bake for 15 minutes, until the crust looks golden and the broccolini looks crispy and dark brown, but not black-burnt. (You can always cover the toppings with foil if the broccolini looks ready before the crust is.) Remove the pizza to a cutting board to cool. Slice into eight rectangular pieces and serve.
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My favorite family food ritual is our love for pumpkin pie. We eat pumpkin pie all year long (I know, out of season, but it’s sooo good!). It is our favorite choice of “birthday cake.” Whenever we have leftover pie, you can usually find us eating it like a slice of pizza (yes, with our hands) for breakfast the next morning. What can I say? We love it!
For Rosh Hashanah each year my mom and I experiment with a new challah recipe. One thing is always the same: the round challah is topped with old-fashioned rainbow sprinkles before baking. The sugar crystallizes, making it extra sweet, and the rainbow colors make it extra festive.
Re this recipe- When did you add the sun dried tomatoes to the pizzas?
Football season marked the beginning of the school year, the end of summer, and the beginning of time stuffed together on the couch to watch the Redskins lose often, and win occasionally. To soften the blow of our losses and to celebrate our victories, my dad made chicken wings in his simple table top fryer. He was meticulous and he was proud of his contribution to our family time. There were four totally unoriginal ingredients: oil, chicken, Frank’s Red Hot, and butter.
Even after leaving home to attend culinary school and living in NY, I still love my dad’s chicken wings more than any other version. It doesn’t matter how you slop those same four ingredients together, unless you do it with the care and precision of someone who loves the people he is cooking for. With that, it makes all the difference in the world.
My mom always made (too much) vanilla chocolate chip pancakes for birthdays. If there was school that day, we were traveling or whatever she always made them.
I try to pre make a few meals for the week!
Every year a couple weeks before Christmas, we decorate dozens and dozens of cookies and then divide the completed cookies amongst everyone.
We make caramel corn every Christmas
Every Easter my mother makes “Easter Bread”, a eggy bread with raisins and almonds. Now, my sister and I also make it every year at our homes. It’s the perfect thing each Easter morning.
On Christmas eve, my family always has stuffed shells for dinner, followed by a pre-Christmas gift opening, and then snacks and a movie to end the night. So much fun!
One of my favorite family traditions is actually at my best friend’s house. I’m very close with her family and call her parents mom and dad number 2. Every Christmas Eve day I go to their house and we spend the day making tamales from scratch. Corn husks, lard, and homemade pico are required. Delish!!
For special occasions (birthdays, holidays, getting through a work week), my husband makes homemade ice cream! For my birthday this year, he made my pick: goat cheese and roasted fig. Delicious! 🙂
When I was a kid, my mom always made chili on Halloween. Piled into a bowl with rice and cheese, it was the perfect thing to warm us from the inside out before trick-or-treating in the cool October air. My sister and I are grown and don’t live at home anymore, but we still text each other and our mom pictures of our bowl of chili on Halloween. Even though we’re not physically together, it feels like we’re all sitting at the table in our costumes together.
Every Chanukah we have homemade cranberry applesauce for our latkes. My mom started the tradition and now my family makes it every year. It was especially fitting for the year we had Thanksgiv-akah!
Pancake breakfast on Sundays mornings with everyone together at the table!
I always like forward to scalloped potatoes on Christmas Eve
We have kids choice for birthdays
We love homemade pizza on Saturday nights
noodles for birthdays! it represents longevity 🙂
Love Monday night pizza night in our house!