Two Pear Pizzas; Sweet and Savory

This post is sponsored by Camp Chef.  As part of my on-going relationship with them, I received the Pro 60 Double Burner Stove, the Artisan Pizza Oven 60 Accessory, and Pizza Kit to review, however all thoughts and opinions, glowing, gushing, or otherwise are 100% my own.

Two different pear pizzas, one savory for dinner and the other sweet for dessert made in an outdoor pizza oven–that is portable.

Yes, it is the dead of winter. But some might call me a rebel.  I grill in a snow storm and I make soups and use my oven in the dead-heat of summer.  When you have a craving for something, there is no need to let the weather get in your way, not in these modern times anyway.

I decided to give my first try of the pizza oven right after Christmas.  I invited my friend and his sons over to have pizzas with my girl and myself. Before I could even get to the fun part of making the pizzas, I had to open the boxes. My first Camp Chef box was for the Pro 60 Double Burner Stove and the other Camp Chef box was for the Pizza Oven 60 Accessory.  I opened the stove box, pulled out all the parts contained therein and arranged them in a fanning arrangement all around me. I, then, being the good student that I am, opened the instruction manual on how to put it all together.  I looked at the guide, my heart seized in terror, anxiety, and exhaustion. After all this was just mere days after Christmas…I have a 4 1/2 year old….Mommy was up until 3 am on Christmas Eve assembling things…I was weary.

But then, as I looked at the drawings and labels of pieces, there were no corresponding pieces on my kitchen floor.  In fact there were very few pieces at all on my floor compared to what was described.  I was baffled.  Was I given a bum item? Was I just that stupid (it’s been known to happen).  Turns out I was just that dumb….the stove was mostly assembled, it just needed to be pulled, popped, pinned into place. The diagrams were, I’m guessing, to get replacement parts if needed, I’m not sure, so all my melodrama for those 2 minutes melted away. I took a deep breath, a gulp of coffee, and pulled, popped, and pinned…then I was done.

Putting the pizza oven together was even easier: Open box, remove packaging materials (including the tiny pieces of styrofoam that break off and become little annoying balls sticking to everything), and place it on the oven. All and all, from opening both boxes to being ready to go, including the personal melodrama, it took around 30 minutes–Why can’t children’s toys be so easy?

I’ve given the Camp Chef stove and oven as a combo a go twice now.  The first time was as I mentioned, with my friend and his sons.  We just made some basic pepperoni pizzas for the kiddos and vegetable pizza for us (although rest assured, we both ate plenty of pepperoni as well, I think the vegetable pizza was just to make us feel better about all the pizza we were eating.) I wanted to get a feel for the oven, how it cooked, I didn’t want to go all gourmet and make crazy ingredient pizzas until I got a feel for this bad boy!

According to the directions, The Pizza Oven takes 10-15 minutes to warm up, allowing the pizza stone to get to 535-545 degrees Fahrenheit.  While this may be the case in normal temperatures, it was not the case for me.  My first try of the oven was on a clear day, snow on the ground, but only 17 degrees outside.  The oven took near 35 minutes to get to the temperature it needed to be at to begin cooking the pizzas. I am not blaming the instructions at all for this, as not everyone is crazy enough to want to do outdoor cooking in 17 degree weather.  So just know, if you’re like me and are going to use this in extremely cold conditions, give yourself more pre-heating time. Even my second go with this, it was only 28 degrees outside and still took the same amount of time, but this time I built extra pre-heating time into my schedule–except I didn’t plan for the propane tank knob to break and need to go buy a replacement, but that was just goes to show you, you can only plan so much.

The Pizza Kit comes with two boards, a scrapper/cutter, pizza spatula, and a digital thermometer. I used the thermometer to track the temperature of the stone as it was heating and throughout the entire time I was using the oven, seeing where it was hotter and cooler and maintaining its heat so I could make any adjustments necessary.  I may or may not have pretended to be a super spy, holding the thermometer as a gun, close to my chest, quickly turning, and “shooting” its laser over and over again while getting my reading. I know it’s not a toy, but I just couldn’t help myself.

So back to my first usage of the stove/oven combo, the first pizza in was just a crust sans toppings.  I wanted to see how evenly it cooked through, how the crust cooked versus the middle. The instructions said thin crust, which I’d say fit my crust accurately, cooks in 4-7 minutes.  This was spot on for my pizza, most taking about 6 minutes.

We then made pizzas with all the proper goodies, tossed the pizza in using the accessories in the Pizza Kit, waited 3 minutes, moved it around, let it cook another 3 minutes, pulled it out, let it rest for about a minute, then cut and served to very HUNGRY children. Then I repeated the process until we were all stuffed, lying on the ground moaning over why did we all eat so much. Ok, maybe the last part is a slight, SLIGHT, exaggeration, but we were all really full.

My next go with the oven, as I was now comfortable with how it cooked, heated, etc, I played with ingredients. I used pears in both pizzas. Making one savory, and one sweet. Each pizza is near identical save it be one or two ingredients lending to sweet or savory.

I absolutely love this Camp Chef stove/pizza oven combo.  I haven’t really talked about the stove for this post, just the oven sitting on and being powered by the stove.  I will use the stove soon and tell you all about that. This stove and oven accessory is a must have if you enjoy entertaining. I don’t have the space in my backyard to build an authentic outdoor wood burning brick pizza oven. But now I don’t need to.  The stove folds up for easy storing, and the oven itself is thin…although it is heavy once the stone is in and secured, so make sure two people lift it…grab a friend, don’t be a hero. If you are huge outdoors-person, camping all the time, this pizza accessory is a great way to mix up your camping food.  But even if you’re not, your outdoors experience is limited to backyard, poolside grilling, this will surely amp up your reputation as an outdoor chef.

So without further adieu, here are the recipes for the Two Pear Pizzas…and rumor has it, the next round of pizzas in this oven just might be featuring pastrami. So be sure to to stay tuned for more recipes and reviews of this fine product.

Pear and Prosciutto Pizza Honey-Pear Pizza

Author: Michelle

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Ingredients

• Pizza Dough
• 1/4 cup ricotta; per pizza
• 1/2 green Anjou pear; sliced; per pizza
• 2 strips of prosciutto; torn; per pizza
• Extra Virgin olive oil
• Salt/Pepper; to taste
• Pizza Dough
• 1/4 cup ricotta; per pizza
• 1/2 red Anjou pear; sliced; per pizza
• 2 tbsp honey
• Extra Virgin olive oil

Instructions

1. Roll out the dough ball to the desired thinness.
2. Using a pastry brush, brush the edges or crust of the dough with olive oil.
3. Spread the ricotta to the edge of the olive oil border.
4. Place the sliced pears and then add the torn pieces of prosciutto.
5. Sprinkle any salt and pepper.
6. Place in the oven, towards the back and side, it will cook in about 3 minutes, but watch it, and rotate it half way through and cook an additional 3 minutes.
7. Remove from oven and allow to rest of at least one minute.
8. Slice and serve.
9. Roll out the dough ball to the desired thinness.
10. Using a pastry brush, brush the edges or crust of the dough with olive oil.
11. Spread the ricotta to the edge of the olive oil border.
12. Drizzle 1 tablespoon honey over the ricotta.
13. Place the sliced pears.
14. Drizzle remaining tablespoon honey over the pears.
15. Place in the oven, towards the back and side, it will cook in about 3 minutes, but watch it, and rotate it half way through and cook an additional 3 minutes.
16. Remove from oven and allow to rest of at least one minute.
17. Slice and serve.

Thank you for sharing!