Beetza

Welcome to the wonderful world of beetza.  Or bizza.  Or beetzah.  Beet pizza.  Well, more like beet focaccia.  Beetaccia just doesn't roll off the tongue in the same way.  It sounds more like a martial arts exclamation.  Beeeeee-taccia! 

Hello there, beets. 

Lovely jubbly, innit?  I have no idea what that means, but I have an Irish friend who says it a lot, and it seemed appropriate for this lovely beet.  

Behold, the root vegetable contingent in my apartment.  

You'll only need one beet and about half of a potato for the beetza.  And some pizza dough, olive oil, rosemary, sea salt, and goat cheese.  

Thinly slice the raw potato.  I used my new mandolin, and it did a fine job.  

The slices were so thin you could see through them.  I really liked them like this, but it won't ruin the 'za if they're a little thicker.  

We have a clinger!  

I sliced the whole tater, and I ended up with a plateful.  

Drizzle a little olive oil on a baking sheet, throw the potatoes on, and bake at 350 for about 5-8 minutes.  You don't want to cook the potatoes completely, because they'll cook more once they're on the pizza.  Just soften them up a little.  

This was after about 8 minutes.  Some of the thinner ones stuck to the pan, and some of the thicker ones were still pretty undercooked.  I'm going to used the thick ones to make a little batch of potato chips.  

Zoomed in a little.  You can tell that they're not totally raw.  

Now it's time for droppin' beets.  Some may say "thinly slicing" beets.  Potayto, potawto.  

Is that a tiny, super thinly sliced beet or do I just have a big, fat thumb?  It's all relative here.  

You'll only need a single beet for the beetza.  Thinly slice it just like the potato.  Save the others for roasting or making beet chips.  

I love taking pictures of beets.  They're such an awesome color, and they kind of look like a tree trunk on the inside.  

Bake the beets just like the potatoes, only extend the cooking time to 10-12 minutes.  Once you take the beets out of the oven, throw in your pizza stone and crank up the temperature. 

Can you beat a plate of beets?  I love beet puns.  Now beet it.  

Roll out some pizza dough, and drizzle with a little olive oil.  I just used my hands to kind of rub the oil around the crust, but you could just brush it on, too.  I prefer to get as few utensils dirty as possible.  I guess I shouldn't care this week since I bet on UNC to win the championship game, resulting in Matt having to wash the dishes for a week.  Beat that!

Sprinkle the crust with rosemary and sea salt.  

Spread the potatoes over the crust.  They're really thin, so I didn't really skimp.

Top with some beets.  

Crumble some goat cheese on top of it all.  

Bake for 20 minutes or so - until the crust is done.  

Beetza is pretty hard to beat, if you ask me.  

We dipped it in olive oil with cracked pepper, and it was lovely.