Tuesday Night's Dinner: Summer's Last Pizzas

To combat the chill that accompanied Tuesday's rain, I used the last of my Quail Hill haul--a few tomatoes and a bunch of broccoli rabe--to make two summery but still warming pizzas.

For the tomato pie, I sliced some tomatoes, set them on some paper towels, sprinkled them with salt, and let them stand for 15 minutes to drain away excess moisture. Then I put them on top of my stretched pizza dough, arranged some thinly sliced soppresata over the tomatoes, and sprinkled on about 4 ounces of shredded mozzarella. (To get the pizza into the oven without incident, I stretch the dough on top of a parchment-lined rimless baking sheet, arrange the toppings on top of the dough, and slice the pizza, still on the parchment, directly onto a preheated pizza stone). After baking in a 500 degree oven for about 50 minutes, I grated some Parmesan over the pizza before slicing and serving.

The broccoli rabe pizza was just slightly more complicated. I sliced three large, juicy cloves of garlic and cooked them briefly in 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Then I trimmed and discarded the tough stems of the broccoli, coarsely chopped the leaves, and added the leaves to the pan with a little bit of salt, stirring for a minute or two to wilt them. I spread the wilted broccoli rabe and garlic over the stretched dough, sprinkled with 4 ounces of grated mozzarella, and baked for 15 minutes in a 500 degree oven. As with the tomato pie, I grated some Parmesan over this one before slicing and serving. .