Zucchini Walnut Goat Cheese Pizza

We've been doing this blog for about two and half months, and this is the fourth or fifth time pizza has appeared - more than any other food. So, yeah, you could say we like pizza.

And I like shooting pizza.

The Food (Jhan)

I know, pizza again!

But I couldn't resist this recipe. I received my new copy of Food and Wine Magazine (October) and saw the article on building a clay oven (p.86) - something I have wanted almost since I learned to cook - and even without the clay oven the recipes sounded interesting. Why did I choose the Zucchini pizza recipe? Simple: we had all of the ingredients in the house.

If you decide to make this pizza, I'd advise that you plan on about 10-12 minutes baking time (on a pizza stone) rather the the 5 minutes called for in the recipe. You may also want to add a little (1 link) cooked, crumbled, spicy Italian sausage sprinkled over the zucchini - the pizza is wonderful on it's own but this extra bit of spicy sausage would really add to the flavor. Also, use fresh summer savory - dried won't do it.

I can't wait to have this pizza again. Check out this month's Food and Wine, there are a lot of great recipes - you may even see a few more of them here.

The Plating

Nothing could be simpler than this: black plate on black background. It works every time. I think that's the case because the black really makes the colors of the food pop. I recommend black when you have a food that doesn't have a lot of color, because the black will accentuate whatever color the food does have.

I liked the simple symmetrical placement of the two slices, but really felt that the composition needed something to add both compositional interest and color to the plate. A fresh sprig of basil was perfect.

This was about the simplest plating I've ever done, but I think it's perfectly effective.

The Lighting and Photography

I used three lights on this shoot... which is becoming pretty standard for me. I shot the key light from the rear through a reflector. I bounced one fill off the ceiling for a soft general light, and bounced on off the sheet to give a little front fill.

Nothing fancy, but you can see how that rear key gives some great reflections off the plate. The ceiling bounce guarantees that there aren't any harsh shadows, and the front light filled in some shadows and put most of the light on the basil in the image below.