Not your typical pizza

I LOVE goat cheese. In fact, I just love cheese.

One of the easy meals we do on a regular basis is "homemade" pizza. When I have extra time, I'll make the crust, but when I don't (which is common), I buy the refrigerated dough in a tube. We usually do toppings like pepperoni, mushrooms, red peppers, green peppers, ham, pineapple, corn (if we want to feel like we're back in Venezuela), and of course, cheese. The toppings are all based on what's available in the kitchen.

In October, we went to San Diego for the weekend to visit Brad and welcome him home to the USA (from Afghanistan). We went to his friend's house and discovered she was practically a gourmet chef. We had delicious gourmet food, including pizzas on the grill! (I definitely want to try this.) One of the pizzas was fig, prosciutto, and goat cheese, among other things like a grilled rack of lamb with spicy brown mustard sauce, wine, and Italian sausage on rolls with sauteed veggies.

So, I recreated this pizza a couple months ago when Amy visited, adding baby arugula, and again enjoyed the mix of flavors--sweet, salty, and peppery.

There's really not much of a recipe. For the crust, I used the refrigerated dough. I flattened it out on wax paper, let it sit for a few minutes. Then, I put some corn meal on a Pampered Chef stone, and put it in the oven to cook for a couple minutes. I took it out before it started browning and brushed it with olive oil. Then I added the toppings: dried figs quartered, prosciutto sliced, and chunks of goat cheese. I threw it in the oven for about 15 minutes. When I took it out, I threw on some baby arugula and enjoyed it!

Back to cheese...because I'm a nerd who loves the dairy section of the food pyramid, I have read about it on the web. I can't believe how MANY types of cheese there are. I want to try to make my own cheese. I heard ricotta is not hard to make. Maybe yogurt too. ...This summer?