Roasted Butternut Squash, Bacon and Goat Cheese Pizza

We just had what was probably the last perfect weekend of the year.  The last few days of wind and rain succeeded in knocking the last of the Fall colors from the trees and we can start to feel the bite in the air.  All of this means that time out at the pool house is going to be limited for a while, so we took advantage of the nice weather while we had it and fired up the pizza oven last Friday.

(Sorry for the poor quality of the photo but all I had out at the pool house was my iPhone!)

I usually end up making about four pizza's with three of them being the basics that everyone will eat.....some combination of tomato, mozzarella, pepperoni, mushrooms and sausage.......but I always like to throw one "experiment" into the mix.  This time it was this Roasted Butternut Squash, Bacon and Goat Cheese Pizza.  Surprisingly, this was everyone's favorite of the night!

I used the wood fired oven to roast cubed squash, chopped bacon and thinly sliced shallots, but your could just as easily roast these on a sheet pan in your oven.  I could have just eaten this all on its own as a side dish, but spread on top of the pizza with some goat cheese and chopped rosemary, this was simply amazing.

I doubt we'll see many more of these beautiful Fall sunsets either! Could we just avoid Winter this year????
 

Here's the recipe:

Roasted Butternut Squash, Bacon and Goat Cheese Pizza

Ingredients:

1 small butternut squash; peeled, seeded and cut into a small dice
1 large shallot, thinly sliced
4 slices applewood smoked bacon, sliced lengthwise then cut into about 1 inch pieces
1 tablespoon chopped rosemary

Put all of these onto a sheetpan and toss with enough olive oil to coat and salt and pepper.
Roast in a 400 degree oven until squash is just fork tender.  You don't want it too soft as it's going to bake in the oven a little longer.

Pizza dough (Use your favorite recipe or store bought is fine)
Olive Oil
Goat Cheese

On top of your favorite pizza dough, drizzle some olive oil and spoon the roasted squash mixture over the dough.   Sprinkle with goat cheese.  If you like a lot, go for it.....it's your party.  Drizzle with a touch more olive oil and pop it into the oven or grill it.  However you like to cook your pizza.