Butternut Squash Pizza

With the abundance of pretty fall squashes available right now, I promised myself I would try and make at least a few dishes with them.  To be honest, I've never really made much with butternut squash (besides a soup I made last fall) or any of the other varieties in season. However, I decided to try and cook with them, whether the dishes turned out or not. The first dish I made was a butternut squash pizza. I have been using a super easy homemade pizza dough recipe I found on a blog called Oven Love, and I have used it several times now. You can throw it together in just a little more time than it takes to call your local pizza shop. We will order the occasional take out (we live in the boonies and the pizza places won't deliver to us..crazy!) but I've been making some pretty good homemade pizza if I do say so myself. It may not be the fanciest or even the most amazing pizza dough/crust I've ever had, but it's simple, it's tastes good, and I know the ingredients that are in it. I got a bit annoyed that my pizza stuck to the peel and messed up my almost perfect circle but I have since found that using parchment paper works wonders. I made 2 different pizzas on Monday (this butternut squash pizza is from a few weeks ago) and used parchment paper instead of cornmeal and flour and it was so easy to slide it onto the pizza stone. Plus, I didn't have to clean the peel!  Anyways, I was skeptical of this pizza at first, but after one bite it is definitely a keeper. I tweaked the original recipe a bit and spread roasted and smashed garlic onto the dough first, and also carmelized my onions in balsamic vinegar instead of roasting. But feel free to make your own revisions if you like. There are endless possibilties when it comes to homemade pizza.

Ingredients
1/2 white or yellow onion, thinly sliced
1/2 medium to large butternut squash-peeled, seeded, and thinly sliced
1 head of garlic
1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
3-4 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
Salt
Pepper
Asiago or Parmesan cheese
homemade pizza dough-click here for recipe (you can use premade/storebought if you want, but trust me-homemade is so much better)

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400
2. Combine squash with the rosemary, about 2 Tbsp of olive oil, and a little salt and pepper in a baking or roasting dish
3.Chop the top off the garlic head, place in a small square of aluminum foil, drizzle with a little olive oil, and close up tightly. Place on a seperate baking sheet or right on your oven rack.
3.Bake squash and garlic for about 20 mins or both the squash and the garlic are tender.

4. While squash and garlic are cooking, heat a pan with a little olive oil and add the onions.  Cook for about 5 mins and then add about a tbsp or so of balsamic vinegar. Continue cooking until the onions are nice and soft.
5. Once garlic is cool enough to touch, squeeze out all the cloves and smash up with a fork.
6.Roll out your pizza dough on your pizza peel (unfortunately, my pizza stuck to my peel since I didn't know to use parchment paper when I made this. Cornmeal is supposed to work, but it didn't do the trick for me.)
7. Spread the garlic onto the dough

8. Top with the sliced squash and onions and sprinkle with however much cheese you want.
9.Bake for about 30 mins or until crust is lightly browned and cheese is melted.



Recipe source: adapted from: Allrecipes.com