fig + goat cheese pizza

A couple weeks ago, I went to my cousin Molly's house in Pasadena to stay for a night with her, her husband Schuyler, their two adorable kids [most likely the only children that aren't in India that I'll ever love] and my other cousin Clare. Here's the thing about my cousin Molly. She's essentially what every young woman strives to be: she's a successful marketing consultant for Nestle, she has impeccable taste in home decor, children's clothes and her own clothes, she's married to most girls' dream guy and she is a FABULOUS chef. Though she rarely has time for herself, Molly made homemade pizza for dinner, complete with homemade crust. Though I'm usually skeptical of sweet-ish pizzas, I could not get enough of her fig, goat cheese, prosciutto and mozzarella cheese pizza. It was absolutely perfect.

Since the visit, I had been dying to recreate the recipe and on Friday, I took the plunge and invited over Lori, Chris and Vanessa as my guinea pigs. Needless to say, it was essentially a disaster and they were great sports.

Since god forbid I read the recipe in advance, I didn't exactly realize that I needed to make the pizza dough two or more hours ahead of time [I know I know I know, some foodie I am] and realized about 10 minutes before everyone was coming over that there was no way I could pull it off. So I rushed to Fresh & Easy to pick up their pre-made dough and alas, they were sold out. In a slight panic, I sped down University Ave. to try and make it to Trader Joe's before they closed when I had a brilliant beyond brilliant idea: URBN.

Now, URBN pizza and I have a very special bond. I eat and/or drink there around three times a week and I have made friends with almost all of the bartenders. So in my frenzied state, I stopped my car essentially in the middle of University Ave. with my hazards on and made a slightly crazy phone call to URBN, begging for pizza dough. Turns out, URBN is even better than I thought and they sold me two pizza dough balls [!!!]... saving the day, yet again.

nom to say the least and topped with thyme

Ingredients: pizza dough, fig dalmatia, goat cheese,

mozzarella cheese, prosciutto, onions, 

flour & olive oil

First, lightly coat a cookie sheet with olive oil. Roll out pizza dough using flour and stretch out to cover the cookie sheet. Layer fig dalmatia, prosciutto, goat cheese and mozzarella cheese. Cook on 375 degrees  until dough is cooked and cheese lightly browns.

In the end, the night was not a total fiasco [minus I forgot to grease the pan and the pizza stuck pretty badly] and I learned a lot; for example that it's pretty hard to grocery shop and then cook a full meal after a work day and it's always a good idea to read the recipe [at least] a night before. But everyone had a full and happy stomach and those are pretty much the only goals I have when hosting a dinner party.

{Did I mention I had some pretty great beer too? Happy Almost Monday!}