Zucchini Pizza Pie

August 20, 2016 by Shannon Fennell Leave a comment

I was inspired by the posts and recipes floating around for “Zucchini Pizza Crust” knowing full well that it would NOT be as described but liking the sound of it.  I mean, what could be bad about zucchini, cheese and eggs with pizza toppings added?  Not a damn thing as it turns out!

I’m calling this a “Pizza Pie” as it does taste like excellent pizza but is not able to be eaten with your hands (unless you really enjoy being messy!) – knife and fork all the way.

So first off… it is zucchini season, and as anyone who has grown them (or has a neighbour, relative or friend who is growing them) knows, finding things to do with them is always a late summer challenge.

I decided to use my biggest one for this.  It was either grate it up for this or stuff it and bake it.  I scooped out the seeds and grated it up while watching Casablanca… damn, that movie makes me cry every time.

So got it all grated and sat it in a sieve in the sink, sprinkled liberally with salt and let it drain for an hour while I grated up some aged cheddar while watching Dark Passage (it was Bogie day on TCM apparently.)

I turned the oven on to 450F to pre-heat.

Yes, I sit on the chesterfield, watching television, while I grate things… so what?

I mixed up the grated zucchini (after squeezing out all the moisture I could) – I didn’t measure it… probably 2-3 cups total; the cheese (maybe 2 cups of grated;) and two eggs.

I then dumped the mixture on a parchment lined baking sheet and spread it out to about half an inch thickness.  I pushed up the sides a bit to make them straight and not touching the edges of the pan.

I put the sheet in the oven on the centre rack.  The recipes I saw said that it should bake for 15 or 20 minutes.  My oven runs hot and it took closer to 40 minutes!  I checked it every 10 minutes, and then reset the timer.  The edges were brown and the top of it was just barely starting to get a hint of brown, and the surface looked dry when I took it out.  Maybe I had it a lot thicker than the recipes intended?

The recipes said to let it cool before turning it into a pizza.  So I slid it onto a clean piece of parchment on a room temp baking sheet to speed that up (I was hungry!)  I trimmed the edges and ate them – YUM!  It was really excellent all by itself – like a soft zucchini fritter.

I increased my oven temp to the highest it would go which was 550F.

I prepped a bunch of veggies by dicing very small – 1/8 to 1/4 inch.  Needed to be very small to cook through quickly.  I used green pepper, green onions, fresh tomatoes, and a small can of chopped black olives. I also had some parmesan salami and mozzarella cheese.

When my zucchini base was cool-ish (it was still pretty warm, but like I said before, I was hungry) I spread leftover spinach/artichoke/cream cheese dip that I’d made the other day over it, then sprinkled all the fresh veggies and olives over that, then laid out the salami, and slices of mozzarella over top of the whole thing.

It then went into the 550F oven for 8 minutes. I kept a close eye on it as I didn’t want it to burn!

It smelled divine!  As you can see in the next photo, it was too sloppy to eat like a pizza.

I think I’ll make a few batches of the zucchini base and freeze to use later on.  It is one way to use up the zucchini and have something on hand to make a quick dinner.  Although, I need to use the food processor not the hand grater next time.

I now have leftovers for a few days, and am looking forward to them!