Pizza Party in Palm Beach

I feel like all I have been doing for the past two weeks is eat, read, enjoy the sun, and shop.  I am not complaining at all- I am loving my vacation. My husband flew down a few days ago and we spent time together eating nice dinners, laying at the pool, and hanging with our great friends Blake and Ben.

Andy and me after dinner at Rocco's Tacos

Tonight Blake and I decided to cook at the condo and make pizzettes- small pizzas if you will.

We decided to make a tomato basil pizza and recreate a blue cheese pear pizza we had at Cheesecake Factory.

While we were preparing the pizza ingredients we made brie for an appetizer.  I usually add brown sugar and maple syrup on the top but since we are at the beach we don't have our usual ingredients. There is raspberry jam underneath the puff pastry.  Blake and I devoured that brie- definitely a favorite appetizer of mine.

We started with caramelizing onions- I had never done this before. It was so easy!

I added a little sugar to bring out the natural caramel in the onions.

Next we melted 1 tbls butter in a very hot skillet.

We started with bosc pears.

Peeled them and then cut them in quarters.

They were put in the butter and cooked for 3-4 minutes on each side.

They took about 15 minutes total and were delicious.  We cooked more than we needed and we are thinking about putting them on vanilla ice cream for dessert, mmm....I can think of so many new things to use roasted pears in now.  

In the midst of the pizza palooza we made some homemade croutons with italian seasoning to add to our caesar salads.

Ingredients for the tomato basil pizza

We used the Publix dough and let it cook on 400 for 8 minutes with olive oil before adding the toppings.

Once it had cooked for 8 minutes we let it cool and then added the yummy toppings.

The pizza on the left started with blue cheese.

The pizza on the right started with minced garlic and a little vodka tomato sauce.

Next comes the fun part!  The pizza on the left has the blue cheese, caramelized onions, roasted pears, and prosciutto. 

The pizza on the right has sliced tomatoes and fresh slices of mozzarella.

Once the pizzas cooked for another 15-25 minutes we added the arugula on the left pizza and fresh basil on the right pizza.

Both pizzas were delicious but the roasted pear and blue cheese won the vote from both of us! 

Let me know if you try this pizza!  You can also add candied pecans instead of prosciutto.