“I’ll Be Baja-ck” – Black Beans, Corn, Green/Red Peppers, Onions, Garlic, Roasted Salsa

Baja-style Mexican food focuses on fresh ingredients and when done right it’s insanely tasty. My newly named “I’ll Be Baja-ck” is my attempt to bring that style to pizza.

I focus on a variety of fresh ingredients – black beans, corn, green pepper, red pepper, onions, and garlic. I would usually sweat it if I were going for that many toppings on a single pizza, but this combination complements itself very well. But I’ll let folks in on the secret ingredient that takes this pie from ooh to holy moly!! – Skips’s Dip Roasted Salsa:

Being from Texas, I don’t need to tell you how highly I regard good salsa. On the West coast, I had been at a loss until one day I picked up this roasted salsa from the store. The flavor of the roasted vegetables added a depth of flavor and was finished off with just the right amount of heat, cilantro, and salt. Instead of going with a base tomato sauce, I opted for this pizza to have olive oil and salsa.

Finally, there are two finishing toppings for this pie to satisfy my belly – avocados and cotija cheese. I didn’t get a chance to put avocados on it this time, but the crumbly cotija cheese is a good replacement for the standard parmesan I would recommend on other pizzas.

A couple notes on this pizza: (1) I launched this guy at 750F, which was just way too hot and charred the bottom a little more than I would prefer; (2) always…and I mean always make sure you let your dough to get to room temperature.