Want a nice spicy and sweet pizza with all the lusciousness of melting cheese curd, salty and fatty bacon cut with the welcoming bitterness of raddichio del Traviso?

Then here it is-just in time for the snows of January.

I sell an amazing amount of this combination on the weekends at the Avalanche Pizza shoppe at the Athens Farmers Market and sometimes combine it with gorgonzola, (when I’m feeling aggressive,) or I sometimes use dried cherries with the chipotle onion. My favorite way to cook it is as a stuffed bread. I’ll fold the bread in a football shape, fill it with the filling and top it with cilantro and aged cheddar then roll it up into a batard shape and slit the top. When it is pulled from the oven it looks like a belly that has been…slit. I call it the Mexican Cartel Snitch Bread.

Above is the batch I did this weekend. I formed some smallish local spelt schiacciata with asiago, fresh spinach and the chipolte-onion-bluberry mix then added fresh curd afterwards.

Recipe:

1 dough ball from Easy Dough Recipe

1 medium to large onion

three chipotle peppers from a can with adobo sauce

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 cup dried blueberry

5-8 leaves of raddichio del Traviso (regular raddichio will do in a pinch) slice thin or thick depending on what you like.

1 rasher of thick cut bacon cut into thin batons

5-7 ounces of fresh curd torn into chunks

preheat the oven to 450 degrees with a heavy upturned cookie sheet on the middle shelf.

Toss onions with olive oil in oven proof pan. Tear the chipotle peppers up and add to the pan with a small amount of adobo sauce (1 tbspn.) Heat in the oven for 12 to 16 minutes tossing halfway to incorporate flavors. Remove from oven and toss dried blueberries then put back in oven for 5 minutes until onions are limp. Remove and toss again then put into a small container and cover to let the blueberries rehydrate with the steam.

Take one dough ball from the Easy Dough Recipe and form a disc. Place either on parchment or a pizza screen the chipotle mix on the dough then place the sliced raddichio, the bacon then the fresh curd. Bake for 12 to 16 minutes or call a professional like Joel Fair (below) and he’ll come by and cook it for you!