Left-over dough - Basil sauce

[Bill/SFNM]

Often, after everyone has stuffed themselves with pizza, there will be a proofed dough ball left over. There are usually a few ingredients left as well as plenty of residual heat in the oven, so I just throw together a pizza or calzone with whatever remains rather than let it go to waste. 

Today, I had a dough ball left over, but just very little sauce and no cheese. However, as a side dish, I had made white beans with garlic and basil sauce. Some of the sauce was left over and so I drizzled it on the pizza before baking. This was so good, I will make it a point to use it on future pizzas.

Here is the recipe for the Light Basil Sauce:

http://splendidtable.publicradio.org/recipes/light_whitebeans.shtml#basil

[Pete-zza]

Sante Fe Bill,

Thanks for the recipe. It comes at a good time since I have a good crop of basil going. In fact, I made a traditional pesto tonight and served it on a nice imported bucatini pasta. Having just made the pesto, I see that the recipe for Patricia Wells' basil sauce is basically the same as for pesto but without the pine nuts and Parmesan cheese. In the past when I have had more basil than I could reasonably handle I would make a pesto out of it and freeze it in an ice cube tray. I had read that it was wise to leave out the Parmesan cheese since it doesn't freeze well. Once the "pesto ice cubes" were frozen, I would place them in a plastic storage bag and keep them in the freezer for future use. I would frequently defrost one or two for use on pizzas and then add the Parmesan cheese. They work quite well, but they don't keep forever in the freezer and the flavors seem to intensify. They can still be used but for things like the au pesto soupe, where often there are many other things besides beans that go into it.

Peter