Yesterday for Cheesefare Sunday, I made Breakfast Pizza. In reading up about CheeseFare Sunday, I found that Cheesefare is connected to Maslenitsa which is believed to be the oldest Slavic holiday. I had no idea of all the activities that are planned all week from welcoming "Lady Maslenitsa” to burning a doll made of twigs and straw dressed in bright clothing symbolizing saying good bye to Winter and welcoming Spring. My husband and I saw a similar custom done in Switzerland. All week, crepes with different fillings are popular; crepes symbolizing warmth and the sun! What a great idea!
Since, I had No Knead dough in the refrigerator, I used this for the Pizza base.
The pizza base was first baked at 450 degrees for 8 minutes.
Mix about a tablespoon of Olive Oil into the Cottage cheese and layer over the caramelized onion. Add grated mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle chopped fresh Parsley over the cheese. Make a small indentation for the raw egg.
Next time, I will add a ring of onion or bell pepper to drop the egg into as one of the eggs did escape, so to say!
Bake the pizza for 10 to 15 minutes, start checking at 10 minutes if you want the yolks runny!
This is a delicious pizza without any meat, especially the second day.
What I really wanted to add to the Pizza was fresh grated Horseradish, but the Horseradish in my garden was covered with snow! This pizza would be great for a picnic as is great cold.
Breakfast pizza with Cottage cheese and eggs
Breakfast pizza caught my eye as some of the recipes use cottage cheese as a topping. Some of these pizzas have cottage cheese cooked on the pizza where as others add cottage cheese with fresh fruit or vegetables at the end as a topping when the pizza is cooked.
I always have pizza dough in the refrigerate and decide to make Breakfast Pizza and layer with cheeses and a raw eggs on the pizza dough. Since I like a runny yolk, I precooked the pizza dough and then I could watch the timing on cooking the eggs.
I liked to pre-cook the dough shells when serving a group as then you can assemble the topping on the pizza and have it ready to go before the guests arrive. This also worked good for my kids' birthday party as their friends could then assemble what ever they liked on a pre-cooked shell. As a joke once, I had cut up a hot dog wiener and found that all the kids loved adding this to their pizza!
Using a rectangle cast iron pan, I pre-cooked the pizza dough. I mixed about half a container of Cottage Cheese, dash of Italian seasoning and pepper. Spread this on the shell and add bacon or thin slices of porchetta as I did in this case. Grated Mozzarella and parmesan cheese was added next.
Into little indentations made with a spoon, add raw eggs into this hole.
Bake the prepared pizza at 500 degrees. I watched the eggs closely and found that I needed to cook the eggs, 14 to 15 minutes so that the egg yolks were still runny.
Adjustments I would make is to not add the Italian seasoning to the cheese mixtures as I found it was too strong of a flavor and better to sprinkle the Italian spice on the shell. I also would caramelize onions and add it as the first layer. A layer of Spinach and Mushrooms would be nice as would a fresh Tomato Salsa or slices of tomatoes as a side.
Just had the other half of the pizza for Breakfast.. I must say it was delicious, my husband loves cold pizza but I did heat mine up.. As I was eating it, I thought of the potato pizza my daughter loved in Rome! Thin slices of pre-cooked potato added over the caramelized onions would be awesome!
This could be added to a make ahead Menu as everything could be frozen, except for the raw eggs. There is a Christmas Breakfast pizza that is assembled the day before but unbaked pizza are easily frozen and certainly saves the hassle of preparing this on Christmas Eve.
