
Happy Thanksgiving!
As I write this, it’s almost midnight, and tomorrow is Thanksgiving. We’ve been cooking for three days straight (five, if you ask Gustavo) to prepare a maybe-just-slightly-too-elaborate meal. In case you’re curious, here’s a copy of the menu.
(Yes, in hindsight as I wrote it out, it turned out it’s a study in butter. Brown butter, elderberry butter, butter-poached beets, herbed butter, even butter lettuce and butternut squash… let’s blame it on the fact that we just finished a month of being strictly vegan!)
Anyway, times like this — when you’re exhausted, head spinning with everything you still need to do, no energy left for anything unnecessary — make me appreciate the quicker, simpler recipes that you can just throw together. In honor of Thanksgiving and its combined excess of food and lack of time, here’s a pizza recipe that requires no advance preparation except the dough. No roasting vegetables, no caramelizing onions, no cooking sauces… just throw it together, bake, and enjoy!


Ingredients
- 1 pizza dough ball (either basic pizza dough or 2-hour pizza dough is fine)
- extra virgin olive oil
- ⅛ cup apricot jam
- 3 ounces mozzarella, cut into cubes
- 2 ounces gorgonzola
- small handful of walnut pieces
- arugula
Instructions
Preheat the oven:
- Preheat the oven to 550 degrees Fahrenheit (or as high as it will go) with your pizza stone inside.
Assemble the pizza:
- Stretch the pizza dough to an approximately 12” circle, then brush with a thin layer of olive oil. (If you already have garlic-infused olive oil, feel free to use that instead!)
- Put your 1/8 cup of apricot jam on the pizza in small dollops. Sprinkle the mozzarella cubes evenly over the dough, then add crumbles of gorgonzola. Sprinkle the walnut pieces evenly on top.
- Bake the pizza until the crust is golden-brown and the cheese is bubbly, rotating once halfway through the cooking time. When it’s done, sprinkle with as much arugula as you prefer.
- While the pizza bakes, stretch the next dough and assemble the next pizza. Repeat until all four pizzas are done.
Bake the pizza:
- Transfer the pizza onto the preheated pizza stone. Cook at 550+ degrees Fahrenheit until the crust is golden-brown and the cheese is melted.
- Sprinkle with arugula to finish, and enjoy!
Want to remember this? Post this gourmet pizza recipe to your favorite Pinterest board!

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