Pear Balsamic Pizza

I have been admittedly absent from my blog and I am sorry for that! I have not been doing much cooking as of late, or I'm using other people's recipes so I don't have a lot to share. I surprised mom for her birthday a few weeks ago, and brought food with me! Upon her return I made home-made pizza!! Here is what I made:

Balsamic Pear Pizza

1 can pre-made pizza dough (I used thin crust and it was crispy-deliciousness)

2 Pears (I used the brown ones that look like they should be in magazines)

4 thin slices Proscuitto

1/2 Red Onion - caramelized

Balsamic Vinegar (I used a flavored Balsamic - if you have a favorite flavor then go for it!)

Gruyere Cheese

Honey

Ok! Start by pre-heating the oven to 500 degrees and if you have a pizza stone, put it in to heat up. If not.....try heating up a cookie sheet. That might work.

If you want to caramelize your onions, put some olive oil (about 1 tsp) in a pan with thin slices of onion. They should never sizzle during this process, but should slowly get softer, and smaller, and browner over time. Feel free to move them around the pan to let everyone get a turn. This will take a while - maybe an hour depending on how many you're doing so don't start it with the pre-heat.

While the stone/pan is heating up chop the pear into very thin slices And grate your Gruyere cheese. You can saute your pears if your slices weren't super thin. The thinner they are, the more they will soften in the oven!

After about 10 minutes pull your pan/stone out and drop the temperature to the recommended baking temp. CAREFULLY put your pizza dough onto the stone/pan and pop it back into the oven for maybe 5-7 minutes.

Pull  the dough out and put down your prosciutto, pears, onions and drizzle some balsamic over everything. I reduced mine a little bit so it wouldn't be so thin, but it also made my kitchen smell a little sour (it's a vinegar. go figure!) so that is up to you. Sprinkle your cheese on top and drizzle honey over everything. Just for some pizzazz.

Put 'er back in the oven until the cheese looks all melted and the crust is getting brown. 

Let it sit out of the oven for a few minutes to settle, and then cut and enjoy! 

Pre-baking the crust with a hot pan makes the crust extra crispy and delicious! Sorry for not posting more - I will try to get better about that. Especially since summer is coming and summer means better produce to experiment with!!

Happy Eating :D