I haven’t made homemade pizza in a long time, so I took advantage of a Saturday spent at home and decided that last night was the perfect evening for homemade pizza. Fall flavors are so warming and wonderful. I wanted to incorporate them into my pizza … starting with roasted butternut squash. It’s easy to use butternut squash that’s already been precut and packaged. I bought a 16 ounce package of precut butternut squash at Vons. This package had two sprigs of rosemary sitting on top of the squash, so I decided to mince them and add them to the pizza.

I started by roasting my squash in a preheated 400 degree oven for 30 minutes. I did nothing more than drizzle olive oil and sprinkle kosher salt and pepper onto the squash before placing into the oven. While the squash was roasting, I let my store bought pizza dough rise on my bread board.

Once the dough had risen (30 minutes is all it takes for the store bought dough), I formed my crust. I find that if I bake the crust for 10 minutes before topping it, I end up with a crisper crust, which I like. I did purchase a couple pizza pans with little holes in them, which I believe also helps with crisping the crust. After I baked the crust at 425 degrees for 10 minutes, I was able to add my toppings.

While my crust was in the first 10 minutes of baking, I caramelized half a small yellow onion (that I cut very thin).

Red sauce didn’t sound appealing to me for this pizza, so I drizzled a little olive oil on the crust as my “sauce” … not too much oil though, just a heavy drizzle.

On top of the oil, I sprinkled a pinch of kosher salt, before placing mozzarella cheese that I cut, thinly. I did not want shredded cheese melted over the entire pizza. There’s a pizza place in Del Mar that I love, called Urban Pi. Oh my goodness, I love their pizza. They make individual pizzas and I will always share one with Dennis. When I go with my friends, JoAnne and I like to share a pizza and salad and we always ask for extra sauce – yum! You go through a line and pick your toppings and you can choose sliced cheese instead of shredded if you like. I feel this is a little fancy, it makes my pizza seem a little more high end, a little more modern … sort of.

On top of the cheese slices, I placed the roasted butternut squash. After that, I laid down the caramelized onions and sprinkled the minced rosemary.

Once the rosemary was on the pizza, I laid slices of prosciutto down.

I baked my pizza for an additional 15 minutes, checking it after 10. After 10 minutes, I thought the crust was a little soft yet, so kept it in the additional 5. You may not need an additional 5 minutes. Just make sure to check it and then you can decide if you’d like it to bake just a bit longer.

I think this may be my favorite pizza yet! I’m looking forward to lunch today when I heat up the leftovers.

Here is a picture of the crust, done just the way I like it.

This pizza will be one I make in my fall pizza rotation for years to come. It was really good!

Ingredients

• 1 store bought refrigerated pizza dough

• 1 package pre-cut butternut squash

• 3 slices prosciutto, torn into smaller pieces

• mozzarella cheese, 10-12 thin slices

• 1/2 yellow onion, sliced thin

• 2 sprigs rosemary, minced

• olive oil, 1/2 tablespoon, plus a drizzle for the dough and a drizzle for the squash

• butter, 1/2 tablespoon

• kosher salt 1 teaspoon for squash, plus a pinch for the crust

• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

• red pepper flakes, for serving (if desired)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Place dough on breadboard to rise, per package instructions.
3. Place butternut squash on a sheet pan, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper.
4. Bake squash for 30 minutes. (Once squash is done roasting, remove from oven and raise oven temperature to 425 degrees.)
5. Melt together olive oil and butter in a small saucepan. Add onions and caramelize, 3-5 minutes.
6. Stretch dough and form onto pizza pan.
7. Bake dough for 10 minutes. Remove from oven.
8. Drizzle olive oil and sprinkle kosher salt onto crust.
9. Place mozzarella slices onto crust.
10. Lay butternut squash onto crust, along with onions and rosemary.
11. Place prosciutto onto pizza.
12. Bake for 10-15 additional minutes, until cheese starts to melt and crust has reached your desired crispiness.

Enjoy!

Until next time, Kris