Mystery Peppers Pizza

My husband came home from work with a bag full of peppers. Apparently, they came from his mother's neighbors' garden. After roasting and tasting them, I decided I had better figure out what type of peppers these were as they were very hot. A little research returned that these were mostly Hungarian Wax peppers, with a few Fresno and a pimiento.

Still trying to use up the Guinness my dad bought, I decided to make a beer pizza dough. Then I remembered one of my favorite CPK pizzas - roasted peppers, caramelized onion, and fresh chèvre. Theirs also has roasted eggplant, but since I'm not crazy about eggplant, I left it off. Bacon would have been nice, too, but I found that mine had gone off.

Mystery peppers

Fire roasting peppers

Roasted peppers

Guinness dough with sauce - on parchment for easy moving

Top with whole-milk mozzarella, roasted peppers, caramelized red onion, and chèvre

Baked for about 6 minutes on the highest oven setting using pizza stone

To roast peppers
Turn a gas burner to high and lay the peppers on the grate. Turn them periodically until they are charred all over. Pull them off with tongs and throw into a clean paper bag, rolling it closed after each addition; that steams them so the skin comes off easily. If you have a culinary blowtorch, you can touch up any missed spots before putting the peppers into the bag. After about 20 minutes, pull the peppers out of the bag and scrape off the skins.

To caramelize onions
Cut an onion in half longitudinally and then into thin slices. Melt a tablespoon of butter in a skillet with a tablespoon of olive oil. Cook the onions on the lowest heat until they are dark brown and sweet - this can take up to 45 minutes.

Guinness pizza dough
I made the dough in my bread machine combining the "Pizza Dough" and "Pizza Dough with Beer" recipes:

• 1 cup flat Guinness
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil
• 2-1/2 cups bread flour
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon active dry yeast

In the future, I'd like to make soft pretzels with this dough.

Pizza sauce
Mix together about 3 Tablespoons of tomato paste, some olive oil, salt, pepper, and oregano to desired taste and consistency.

Assemble on parchment, so the whole thing can be easily slid onto a (preheated) pizza stone. Bake in a preheated oven on the hottest setting (mine is broil) until the cheese is bubbly and turning golden brown. If you don't have a pizza stone, bake the pizza on a cookie sheet.

The crust was rather thick, but it baked really well. The Guinness flavor was awesome, but the peppers were a little hotter than I would have preferred. I think I also would have preferred more onion, but I only caramelized one (fairly large) red onion... I just love caramelized onions!

Beer chops

My dad came for a visit about a month ago, and on one gorgeous night we decided to do some grilling. A quick trip to Local Harvest and we came home with pork chops, sweet potatoes, and broccoli... And a 4-pack of Guinness!

I brined the chops for about 4 hours, then rubbed them with sage and salt & pepper before sending them out to the grill. The cooking time will vary depending on the thickness of the chops. Ours were about 1.5" thick and took about 15 minutes on a hot grill. Note that thanks to modern science, pork can now be eaten less than well-done. :D

Peel, cut into chunks and boil the sweet potatoes until fork-tender. Then mash with butter, cream, sugar, and cardamom... until creamy and to taste.

Cut broccoli to desired size, toss in garlic-infused olive oil, lemon, and salt & pepper. Make a single layer in a sheet of aluminum foil and seal edges into a pouch. Put it on the grill for about 15 minutes until the broccoli has brown, crispy edges.