Potato & Taleggio Pizza with Apple, "Bacon" and Spring Mix

This most excellent Potato & Taleggio Pizza was inspired by a pizza of the same name at Coco 500. I didn't try the CoCo 500 version, but I added apple, Canadian "Bacon", and Spring Mix to mine and it was a fantastic combination!

The potato was sliced super thin, so the pizza wasn't a carb-fest, and the crunchy freshness of the apple, and the vinaigretted Spring Mix, perfectly balanced out the buttery Taleggio. And, of course, mild potato with salty "bacon" and cheese - it's gotta be great!

Taleggio is a creamy Italian cheese with an orange and grey inedible rind. It's a strong smelling cheese that becomes stinky and runny as it ages. Mine was fairly young. It is brie-like in texture (although less satiny), while being much saltier and tangier in taste. A great cheese to have with fruit, Taleggio is also popular for cooking because it melts well.

I used a Trader Joe's plain pizza dough, which I rolled out thin and brushed thoroughly with garlicy olive oil (olive oil with a large freshly minced garlic clove).

I boiled a single medium red potato in its skin until it was tender. I peeled it and sliced it as thin as I could, which was actually pretty darn thin (important to the success of the pizza, I think). The slices of potatoes were arranged around the perimeter of the pizza and then sprinkled with a little shredded mozzarella. I kept the Taleggio in the fridge until I was ready to cut so it was firm enough to slice into very thin shavings. I arranged these in between the potato slices and in the center. I then added peeled, thinly sliced Fuji apple (I only used about 1/3 of the apple) which went where ever there was a good spot. The Canadian "Bacon" was a single slice of Yves veggie version, chopped and sprinkled.

The pizza was baked on a pizza stone at 450 for 8 minutes. I then added very small amounts of spring mix, lightly tossed in an olive oil-balzamic vinegar vinaigrette.

Serve with big glasses of red wine.