Galentine’s Day: Caesar Salad Pepperoni Pizza

Galentine’s Day: noun,  an annual (not) nationally recognized holiday celebrated by human females on February 13th, the day before the over commercialized, bummer-of-a-holiday-for-single-women traditionally known as Valentine’s Day.  Galentine’s Day was made popular by Leslie Knope, a fictional character portrayed by Amy Poehler on American television comedy Parks and Recreation.  Galentine’s Day is known as a day when lady friends gather, wear comfortable pants, and eat as many waffles (among other things) as they’d like. 

See also:  Treat Yo Self.

All week we’ll have a Galentine’s Day menu, from pizza to waffles, because this seems like a very fine way to gather in delicious ridiculousness with our lady friends.  Also, keep an eye on Instagram because later this week we’ll have a sweet heart-shaped giveaway from LunaSky jewelry.  (Talk about treat yo self!) 

In my experience, few things delight women more and upset men more than salad-pizza.  The lines have been drawn.  

Think of salad pizza along the lines of going out to lunch with a girlfriend and ordering a salad and a basket of french fries.  Balance and communion. 

Here’s what we’ll need: 

•  Pizza dough.  It’s easy enough to make no-knead and fresh.  I used this recipe, here. You can also buy a little dough round at Trader Joes, or go to your favorite pizza shop and ask to buy one of their dough portions.  I say make it easy on yourself, whatever that means to you. 
• Pizza sauce, melty mozzarella cheese, and pepperoni rounds.
• Romaine lettuce hearts, Caesar dressing, croutons, and grated parmesan cheese for a down and dirty Caesar Salad. 

The pizza crust is rolled thin.  The yeast will have the dough spring back because of the yeast, but roll as thin as possible. 

I tried to toss the pizza like a pro.  That’s harder than it looks.  Some gently curled knuckles will help stretch the dough to very thin. 

Bottled pizza sauce.  Nothing too sweet.  

Spread to your desired sauciness. 

Shredded mozzarella cheese and plenty of pepperoni.  

I sprinkled on grated Parmesan cheese and into a hot hot oven it goes! 

While the pizza bakes, we’ll grill the lettuce in a grill pan before slicing to salad. 

Romaine hearts are sliced in half lengthwise and drizzled lightly with olive oil. 

I heated a cast iron grill pan to hot hot hot and grilled the lettuce until juuuust charred. 

Grilling lettuce!!  I had never done this before.  Easy and charry and I’m really glad it happened. 

The grilled lettuce is slightly wilted, with grill marks, and chopped coarsely for the salad. 

Caesar salad dressing, parmesan cheese, and plenty of croutons. 

Something about a melty, greasy, bubbling homemade pizza is somewhat janky and exactly right.  

Cold salad atop warm pizza and serve immediately.  

For the gals- as an appetizer to the chocolate waffles!  Yes.  Pizza as appetizer to waffles because Galentine’s Day is only once a year and chocolate waffles don’t happen often enough. Treat yo self! 

Photos with Jon Melendez

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