Green Tomato Pizza with Pesto and Feta

This vegetarian pizza showcases green tomatoes at their finest--topped with feta and mozzarella cheese on a garlic scape pesto-spread crust.

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Friday nights are pizza nights around here, and I'm always looking to what vegetables are in season to add to our pizzas. After trying a fried green tomato sandwich with goat cheese at a local restaurant, I decided to throw some different cheeses on top of sliced green tomatoes and see if I could make a tasty vegetarian pizza. This one turned out well--the pesto complements the cheeses nicely and perks up the green tomatoes in a pleasing way.



September may make some folks think of All the Pumpkin Spice All the Time, but for me September means Green Tomato Season. While I've had a terrible year tomato-wise in my garden (more than made up for with terrific pickling cucumber and tomatillo harvests) I do have plenty of green tomatoes still on the vine.

Cooler nights mean that those tomatoes will ripen much slower than in the heat of summer . . . so why not make good use of green tomatoes?  No matter if you grow them yourself, find them in your Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share box, pick them up at the farmer's market or come home to a basket on your doorstep from an overwhelmed neighbor--get your mittens on some green tomatoes this month.



The main thing I make with green tomatoes is my Green Tomato Bacon Jam. It's a freezer jam, sweet and savory, and I think it is amazing mixed with ground meat for burgers. I put up several jars in the Fall and try and use the last one up mid-summer. I also like to make chili with green tomatoes, and have shared 2 recipes so far--one with beef and one with pork. Pork pairs pretty nicely with green tomatoes  in my Cabin Casserole, too.

Whole Wheat Pear & Pecan Streusel Muffins #MuffinMonday

A buttery oatmeal streusel tops these whole wheat pear and pecan muffins.

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I like to bake a batch of muffins to welcome new families to my town.



Typically I'll grab a seasonal fruit (no Beet and Horseradish Muffins for someone I don't know well) and make something sweet and snack-like, then pull them out of the oven, take some photos--and a bite of one--then send my daughter off with a basket of warm baked treats. [Not the one I took a bite of, I finish that one. And my kids get to eat some, too. I give away the rest.]

These muffins were no exception--a new family moved in a few blocks away, and I had a couple of pears to use up. I was in the mood for streusel, so I threw this together.  The recipe is loosely based from the general muffin recipe in my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, but with lots of adaptations for the spices and mix-ins.

Grilled Sausage and Peppers Pizza

This post is sponsored by the Ohio Pork Council. I bought my ingredients then created this recipe, the Ohio Pork Council paid me for my time.

Grilled Italian pork sausages, bell peppers, and onions top this pizza with plenty of cheese from both provolone and mozzarella. Since everything is cooked on the grill, your house stays cool while you enjoy the flavor of a sausage and pepper hoagie in pizza form.

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The purpose of this post is to get my readers to take a short survey about Ohio pork (you don’t have to be an Ohio resident to respond). When you take this survey, you’ll be entered into a Le Creuset Dutch oven giveaway. Since it’s free for you to be here there’s not even any purchase necessary to enter. You’ve got nothing to lose! Why not? Go take the survey now, I’ll be waiting with the pizza when you get back. 

The link to the survey is here. Enter to win!

I’m supposed to share what I love about Ohio pork today, and since we’re talking about love that means talking about my spouse. He returned from his 5th deployment a different man. I'm not talking about the time he went on his 4th deployment, and he went online and fell in love. Instead, my spouse now prefers to know more about the protein he eats than just “it was marked down at the grocery store”. For him, it’s a natural evolution from knowing who grows our produce—by joining a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share—to knowing more about the proteins we choose to eat by sourcing them locally as well. Since I want to keep my time in the kitchen simple and fix one entree for the family, I needed to find new sources of protein.

My spouse took this photo (cuz that's me on the right).