Deep greens pizza (or it's all good)

Recipe: White pizza with stir-fried deep greens

My garden is overflowing with kale and chard, and everyone knows how yummy and nutritious that is. But we felt like pizza, so we came up with an interesting combination.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Take a pizza crust. You can get pizza dough at Trader Joe's, or you can buy a Boboli crust, or you can make your own, or you can even use the bottom half of a round of bread, sliced off the loaf about a half inch thick.

Tip: If you're using store-bought pizza dough, you may find it hard to roll out, or stretch out into a pizza shape, at first. Start it and then let it rest for about 20 minutes. It'll shape up.

Top your pizza crust with fresh ricotta cheese, smeared on with the back of a spoon, fresh mozzarella cheese cut in rough slices, and grated Parmagiana-Reggiano. I also strewed pitted Kalamata olives over the cheese, to give it a little kick, and sprinkled it all with a few hot pepper flakes. You could do this or not - your choice.

Put the pizza in the oven, on a pizza stone if it's dough, directly on the oven rack if it's a crust that's already baked. Bake for 20 minutes for fresh dough, or 10 minutes for prebaked crust, or until the cheese is well melted and the crust is crisp and lightly browned.

Meanwhile, make the greens.

• 2 slices bacon (eliminate for a vegetarian version, and add 1 more tablespoon olive oil)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• A leek, well washed, with white and green part sliced
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled and cut in half
• 1 bunch kale, stripped from stems, washed, and sliced into ribbons
• 1 bunch chard, stripped from stems, washed, and sliced into ribbons
• Sea salt
• Half a lemon

In a large wok or a large skillet, fry the bacon. Then take it out and hold it on paper towels, but leave the bacon grease in the pan. Add the oil to the grease, and heat it.

Add the leek and the garlic and stir fry over medium high heat for a minute or two. Add a large bunch of the kale/chard and keep adding more as it cooks down until you have it all in the pan. Stir often, turning over the greens so they all get a chance to cook on the bottom.

When the greens are wilted and tender (taste them!), turn the heat off, add salt to taste, add the cooked bacon, and toss well. Squeeze the juice of the half lemon over the greens and toss again.

When the pizza comes out of the oven, put it on a cutting board and cut it into slices. Put the slices on a big serving platter, or just use the cutting board as a serving platter.Top the pizza with the warm greens and carry it to the table. Pour the wine or the beer.

Buon appetito! Delicioso!

The payoff
Kale and chard are good for almost everything the body needs to be healthy...antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, support for the body's detoxification system, risk-lowering benefits for various common cancers, eye health. This stuff is all good and we should eat it as often as we can.

Deep greens pizza is vegetarian if you eliminate the bacon (use an extra tablespoon of olive oil instead) and it is gluten-free if you use a prebaked GF crust. In the SF Bay Area you can buy GF crusts prebaked at Mariposa Bakery, or you can order from them by mail.