As you may (or may not) remember from my previous post, my boyfriend likes simple things when it comes to food - I, as the cook, like complex ones. I usually win, being cook and all, but try to compromise ... he likes pizza, pasta, couscous, all those basic staples, so I usually get weird with one of those as a base. Pizza is often my go-to because, honestly, it's super simple.
So, feeling ultra confident in my abilities, I decided to make a barbecue pizza. Easy-peasy, right? Too easy, said my brain, let's throw some homemade caramelized onions on that sucker!
Groan.
So, I diced two onions super thin, put then in a pot with a pat of butter, and got to work. But I didn't have two things necessary for caramelized onions - a cast iron (or general not non-stick) pan, or like 5 hours. Caramelized onions take a heap of time, folks. So I found this killer recipe -15-minute caramelized onions - from the brilliant J. Kenji Lopez-Alt. Now, if you have a regular pot/pan, yours may take only 15.5 minutes. I only had non-stick (it's so pervasive!) and so it took me, I dunno, like 30 minutes. Still not typical caramelized onion time, but also still a pain.
Brown, damn you!
So, about 30 minutes (and one exasperated and starving boyfriend) later, I had this:
Much better!
Then came time to dress the pizza! Now, I'm only a mild masochist - I had already spent way too much time on onions, I wasn't about to try to do BBQ sauce from scratch, and Trader Joe's had a new delicious Kansas-style mustard based sauce that I just had to try. Plus, I was already there for their awesome pre-packaged pizza dough (again, not a complete masochist), so why not? I tossed the dough, and spread on some of that delish sauce.
Then I added the caramelized onions, grilled chicken, mozzarella and some brussels sprouts (for crunch and cause they're awesome - just don't steam them) and baked away. I was gonna take process pics, but le beau and I were ravenous by this point, so you get this instead:
Heh. Sorry.
We got a little carried away with the eating, but dang was it good! Fully recommended, though maybe buy some caramelized onions instead. On the bright side, we had a surplus so I've been throwing them in everything - sandwiches, on eggs, in salads, you name it! Total diet upgrade.
We also threw back some wine with it, Dearly Beloved's I Thee Red.
I want Dia De Los Muertos skulls on everything!
Pretty stellar for the price, not to dry or woody or whatever you usually get with reds, but still nice and complex. Why no, I don't know anything about wine, thanks for asking.
Anywho, thus concludes another awesome dinner in the Herban household - happy experimenting, everyone!
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