Serving Up {Pizza}: Roasted Pumpkin and Sage Pizza

It turns out that October is national pizza month.  Considering that, I thought that I ought to at least post one pizza recipe this month - especially considering how much our family loves pizza!  This recipe is the perfect October recipe because it's star ingredient is roasted pumpkin!  So should you have a cute little sugar pumpkin sitting on your counter as an autumn decoration, it is now time to put it to good use.

I was inspired to create this recipe after seeing this recipe for squash pizza and after having roasted an entire sugar pumpkin to serve as a side dish and being left with ample left overs.  Normally when I make roasted pumpkin I roast it with the sage, but in the case of this creation, I had roasted my pumpkin with rosemary, which was delicious in and of itself.  But since I knew that I love the flavor of sage and pumpkin together, I knew that when I put it on the pizza that I wanted to include sage.  So I browned some butter and cooked the sage that way.  In place of a pizza "sauce" I spread marscapone onto my pizza crust before topping it with the roasted pumpkin, browned sage leaves and mozzarella cheese.  The result was absolutely delicious!
Hope you agree.

One Year Ago: Pumpkin Bread Pudding

ROASTED PUMPKIN AND SAGE PIZZA     
printable version

For the crust:
3/4 cup warm water
2 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. yeast
1/2 Tbs. olive oil
1 1/4 tsp. salt
2 1/4 cup flour

In a mixing bowl, combine warm water, sugar, yeast and oil.  Allow yeast to activate for approximately 5 minutes.  Add flour and salt and combine - with bread hook or with a large heavy spoon.  Knead in the mixer or by hand for 5-10 minutes until a soft, workable dough has formed.
Place dough in warm area and allow to rise for an hour, or until double in size.
Remove dough onto a floured surface.  Work into a large 12-15 inch circle, place on pizza pan and set aside.

For the pumpkin:
1/3-1/2 small sugar pumpkin
2 shallots, chopped roughly
1 1/2 tsp. rosemary, slightly crushed
1-2 Tbs. olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Cut the pumpkin, remove the seeds and peel the outer layer.  Cut pumpkin into 1-inch squares.
In a bowl, combine pumpkin, shallots, rosemary and olive oil.  Line a baking pan with foil and place pumpkin mixture on pan; sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.  Place pan in the oven and cook until pumpkin is tender - approximately 30 minutes - removing pan and tossing pumpkin once during cooking process.

For the pizza:
1/4 -1/2 cup fresh sage leaves, cut into narrow strips
2 Tbs. butter
4 ounce marscapone, softened
1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella
cooked pumpkin (see above)
pizza crust (see above)

In a small non-stick pan melt butter and allow to cook until it begins to brown.  Add the fresh sage leaves.  Cook until the leaves are wilted and brittle.  Remove from heat and set aside.
To prepare pizza, preheat oven to 450 degrees.  If using a pizza stone, preheat stone in oven.
Using your prepared pizza dough, spread marscapone over the entire crust.  Sprinkle cooked pumpkin and then cooked sage.  Top with shredded mozzarella.
Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes, until crust is cooked through and cheese is melted.