Hangover Pizza

2/14/10
The creation:
Homemade pizza with eggplant and mushrooms

So, what's in the fridge (items listed newest/most recent additions to oldest):
fingerling potatoes
Twice-baked sweet potato
1 slice guanciale
small hunk of Stilton
1/2 tub cream cheese
pizza dough (enough for one small pie)
San Marzano tomatoes (3/4 can)
1/2 white onion
1/3 red onion
1/2 lemon
1/2 lime
3 eggs
Sugo (Mama's homemade, pork-based tomato sauce)
fresh parsley
chicken stock
rabbit stock
3 stalks celery
frozen peas
Maple syrup

What's always there:
milk
butter
flour
rice
dry pasta
peanut butter
grape jelly
Parmesan or Asiago
salt and pepper
nuts (usually almonds and pecans)

Key ingredients consumed:
pizza dough
San Marzano tomatoes
lemon

Ingredients purchased:
fresh Mozzarella
eggplant
mushrooms

The creative process:
Okay, so today wasn't *all* that creative. Last night was a raucous one of vintage Champagne followed by fried chicken and karaoke in K-Town that wrapped up at 6am, so after putting in a full day at work, I wanted nothing but hangover food and my bed. Pizza dough and San Marzano tomatoes were just the siren song I craved. And eggplant and mushrooms are, like, in my category of pretty-much-vegetables, so I didn't feel so bad when I loaded extra mozzarella onto the thing.

The verdict:
San Marzano tomatoes plus a squeeze of lemon, some salt and a dash of EVOO equals perfect pizza sauce. However, four-day-old pizza dough apparently doesn't hold its shape as well as it did on day one. The thing stretched too thinly in the middle, and my excessive toppings made it all soggy and leaky through the bottom. I was hungover and couldn't have cared less: I folded the thing in half, cranked up the heat in the oven so the crust would get somewhat crisp, and called it a calzone. The flavor was spot on, even if it looked utterly miserable.