Summer Squash Pizza with Goat Cheese and Walnuts

I got John a subscription to Food and Wine Magazine for his birthday.  He likes cooking about as much as I do, and likes wine (well, reading about wine at least) even more than I do, so I figured this would be a present that would be a win-win gift if you know what I mean :-)


One of the first recipes that caught my eye was this pizza recipe, which I altered just a little bit.  We were actually going to make it for my dad, who was over for dinner the other night, until our oven door fell off.  That was fun.  So instead, John fired up the grill, I called our handy man the next day, and this weekend we had a functional oven and all of the ingredients to whip up this gourmet pizza!

The first ingredient was the most important, and looked like this:  

A bottle of 2007 Envy Sauvignon Blanc.  We visited this small, no frills vineyard in May and the purchase of a bottle waived your tasting fee - the costs pretty much balanced out so why not buy a bottle?  

This is an excellent wine and was not too sweet, which is perfect in my world.  However, I digress...the pizza turned out great and is an ideal recipe for a light summer (or in our case fall) dinner accompanied with a fresh salad.


Here's how I made it:


Ingredients:
6 oz whole wheat pizza dough
All purpose flour to dust your board
Extra virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella
2 oz fresh goat cheese, crumbled
1 zucchini, thinly sliced 
1 small yellow squash, thinly sliced 
2 tablespoons chopped walnuts
salt 
pepper
red pepper flakes


Directions:
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  Flour your worksurface and roll out the pizza dough until it is about 12" long and fits on a baking sheet.  Transfer the dough to a baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray.


Whenever I make homemade pizza, the directions I read generally tell me load up the raw dough at this point with whatever toppings I desire, and then bake.  This never works for me: I cannot get the dough to cook all the way through without burning whatever is on top.  So once I have the dough rolled out, I typically bake it for 6 - 8 minutes while I'm prepping all of the other ingredients.  So that is what I did here.  Carry on...


Remove the semi-cooked dough from the oven and mix the garlic, red pepper, and olive oil in a small bowl.  Spread over the pizza dough and proceed with the toppings...salt & pepper, then the onion slices, then the mozzarella.  Arrange the squash and zucchini slices on top and try to alternate colors if you're interested in what it looks like when it comes out.  Top with crumbled goat cheese and return to the oven for about 10 more minutes.


Top the cooked pizza with the crumbled walnuts.  Cut and serve!