Veggie Supreme Pizza

Dr. Reeves asked me this week what I see when I close my eyes. I told her the truth: I see the ER. Not the whole ER — specific moments. The teenager from the car accident last October whose mother arrived after we'd already called it. The overdose patient who grabbed my wrist and said "please" and I still don't know if she meant "please save me" or "please let me go." The child — I can't talk about the child yet. Dr. Reeves says that's okay. We'll get there. I'm not sure I want to get there, but I've learned that therapy, like sinigang, requires ingredients you don't always want to add.

I made pancit bihon tonight. Rice noodles, thin as thread, stir-fried with vegetables and chicken and a splash of soy sauce and calamansi — the small Filipino citrus that Lourdes grows on her windowsill because Alaska won't let it grow outside and Lourdes has never let Alaska tell her what she can't do. Pancit is comfort food the way a blanket is comfort — it wraps around you, fills the spaces, asks nothing in return.

The noodles go in last, after the vegetables soften and the chicken cooks through. You toss everything together with tongs, the noodles absorbing the sauce and the flavor of everything they touch. Lourdes says pancit is the most democratic Filipino dish — it takes on whatever you give it, makes it work, doesn't complain. I think Lourdes is talking about herself when she says this, and I think she knows it, and neither of us acknowledges it because acknowledging it would require a conversation neither of us is ready to have about how much she sacrificed to bring four children into a frozen world that was never hers.

I'm a month into leave now. The nightmares are still nightly. I wake up sweating with heart rates that would concern me if I were my own patient. Dr. Reeves adjusted the sleep medication. I'm trying melatonin. I'm trying chamomile tea. I'm trying everything except going back to the wine, because the wine was part of what got me to the floor and I know it even if I haven't said it out loud yet.

The pancit was good. I ate it on the couch, watching the late April light linger past eight PM. The days are getting longer. In Alaska, that means something different than it does everywhere else — it means the darkness is releasing its grip, slowly, like a fist unclenching. I'm trying to unclench too. The pancit helps. The light helps. The hands help — busy and useful and covered in soy sauce. My hands know what to do even when the rest of me doesn't.

I didn’t set out to make pizza that night — I set out to make something that would keep my hands busy for more than ten minutes. Stretching dough, slicing peppers thin, watching mushrooms go golden in a pan — it’s the kind of cooking that fills an hour without asking you to think about anything except what’s right in front of you. The veggie supreme came together the way the best meals do when you’re running on bad sleep and chamomile tea: one small task at a time, until suddenly there’s something whole and hot and good sitting on the counter. Here’s how I make it.

Prep Time: 1 hr | Cook Time: 7 min | Total Time: 1 hr 7 min | Servings: 1

Ingredients

1 ball Best Pizza Dough (or Food Processor Dough or Thin Crust Dough)
1/3 cup Best Homemade Pizza Sauce
4 baby bella mushrooms
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon fennel seed
1/4 green pepper
1/4 red pepper
1 handful thinly sliced red onion
1/2 cup mozzarella
2 tablespoons feta crumbles
Dried oregano, for sprinkling
Kosher salt
Semolina flour or cornmeal, for dusting the pizza peel

Instructions

Prepare the dough. Follow the Best Pizza Dough recipe to prepare the dough. (This takes about 15 minutes to make and 45 minutes to rest.)
Preheat the oven. Place a pizza stone in the oven and preheat to 500°F. OR preheat your pizza oven.
Make the sauce. Make the 5 Minute Pizza Sauce.
Sauté the mushrooms. Slice the baby bella mushrooms. Heat the olive oil in a small skillet. Sauté the mushrooms and fennel seeds for about 3 to 5 minutes, until they become golden brown and start to release moisture. Add 3 pinches kosher salt and continue to cook a few minutes. Remove from the heat.
Prep the vegetables. Finely dice the green pepper. Thinly slice the red pepper. Thinly slice the red onion.
Stretch the dough. When the oven is ready, dust a pizza peel with cornmeal or semolina flour. (If you don’t have a pizza peel, you can use a rimless baking sheet or the back of a rimmed baking sheet. But a pizza peel is well worth the investment!) Stretch the dough into a circle, then gently place the dough onto the pizza peel.
Assemble the pizza. Spread the pizza sauce over the dough using the back of a spoon to create a thin layer. Add the mozzarella cheese. Top with the mushrooms, peppers, red onion, and feta cheese crumbles. Sprinkle with dried oregano and a few pinches of kosher salt.
Bake and serve. Use the pizza peel to carefully transfer the pizza onto the preheated pizza stone. Bake the pizza until the cheese and crust are nicely browned, about 5 to 7 minutes in the oven (or 1 minute in a pizza oven). Slice into pieces and serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Veggie Supreme Pizza — The Meal That Didn't Ask Me to Be Okay