Duck Pizza, Pesto Pizza

In anticipation of the binge eating to come over the Christmas holiday, I had planned to have a salad for dinner on the last night before we headed to visit my and Sarah's families. I had reserved the fat from the duck I had roasted earlier in the week and used that duck fat to cook up some chicken. It should have been really special. But once I put it in the salad, it just tasted like regular chicken. There were other things in the salad that I was rather excited about, but for some reason, it all just fell very flat. We finished dinner, and I was still hungry. Starving, really.

About an hour later, I made a second dinner. I put together a quick pizza dough and began to then empty out the fridge. On my pizza, I took the leftover roast duck and shredded/cut it up into topping size. On Sarah's pizza, I used pesto and all the rests of the various bags of cheeses from the fridge. It was a nice way to clear out the fridge, which is also something I have been working on in anticipation of travel over the holidays.

Each of the pizzas turned out to be very tasty, depending on who you asked. I am convinced that duck and pizza are a good combination. I am also convinced that pesto is not so good on pizza. Sarah, on the other hand, feels the exact opposite way, which, as it turns out, works out quite well for us.

If you make both of these pizzas, this should serve anywhere between 2 to 4 people, depending on how many dinners they ate earlier. 

Duck Pizza

1. some pizza sauce or marinara sauce
2. about 1/3 of a mozzarella ball or however much mozzarella is left over in your fridge. tear off little pieces from the ball and drop them on the pizza
3. some shredded mozzarella, about half of what is left over in the fridge. the kind i had for this recipe was a mix of mozzarella and provolone
4. some cherry tomatoes, halved. i think i used 12.  i would have used thinly sliced romas, but this is what i had in the fridge.
5. some shredded cheddar. you really don't need this, but i had it in the fridge.
6. some pizza dough. you want enough for a small pizza. this should be half of a batch of dough if you use my recipe.
7. some duck meat. i used the meat from two wings and a thigh, shredded and chopped. 

i don't have a fancy pizza stone, so i cook my pizzas on regular baking sheets lined with parchment paper. set the oven to 450, which is as high as i am comfortable setting my 30 year old oven. because i like a crispier crust, i bake the pizza dough with nothing on it for about 8 to 10 minutes. then, i pull them out of the oven, flip them over, and then top. there's really no wrong way to top a pizza, but unless you put down the sauce, then the cheese, and then the toppings, you're doing it all wrong. 

once topped, put the pizzas in the oven for another 8 to 10 minutes, or until other people in the house can start smelling pizza. these two events should occur at about the same exact time.

Pesto Pizza

1. some pesto sauce
2. about 1/3 of a mozzarella ball or however much mozzarella is left over in your fridge. tear off little pieces from the ball and drop them on the pizza
3. some shredded mozzarella, about half of what is left over in the fridge. the kind i had for this recipe was a mix of mozzarella and provolone
4. some shredded cheddar. you really don't need this, but i had it in the fridge.
5. some pizza dough. you want enough for a small pizza. this should be half of a batch of dough if you use my recipe.