Butternut squash pizza

The idea for this just came to me out of the blue over breakfast this morning. I did a little research on-line for ideas, but basically I just made it up. It came out surprisingly well. I'll definitely do it again. It could be done a lot more seriously (you could make the crust from scratch, which I've never done, or roast and puree the squash yourself), but this was about all I was up for after work. It took an hour start to finish.

Ingredients:
1 readymade sourdough pizza crust
1 can butternut squash puree
1 hunk smoked gouda cheese
1 green bell pepper
1 red onion
1/2 cup frozen corn
ground chicken (optional)
ground sage
cream
fine-grated parmesan cheese
lemon juice

1. In a small saucepan over low-medium heat, mix the butternut squash puree together with a little bit of cream, maybe a couple of tablespoons. (All the measurements are really approximate.)

2. Add two or three tablespoons of parmesan cheese and maybe a tablespoon or so of ground sage and a squirt of lemon juice. To taste. When everything's mixed and tastes right, turn off the heat and set aside.

3. Slice the onion in very thin rings. Slice the pepper in very thin crescents (or rings).

4. Grate the gouda, coarsely. Since I was using gouda instead of mozzarella I used a cheaper American smoked gouda, kind of soft and oily, instead of the hoity-toity Dutch import we get for snacking on. It worked well. I think a real hard gouda wouldn't have worked on pizza. Grate as much as you need, which will obviously depend on how much cheese you like on your pizza. A cup? Two cups?

5. If you're using meat, brown the ground chicken, seasoning it as you do with your choice of seasonings.

6. Thaw the frozen corn kernels in the microwave. Putting corn on pizza is, as some of you will remember, a Japanese thing, but in this case it really makes the pie: don't skip this ingredient. Be generous.

7. Preheat your oven to 450.

8. Ladle the squash mixture onto the pizza crust, spreading it evenly.

9. Arrange the onion and green pepper on the pizza all purty-like. Then put on your ground chicken, and then the corn. Finally, top it all with the gouda.

10. Bake for about 10 minutes, or until everything's melted and bubbly and the crust is starting to get crisp at the edges.

The sourness of the sourdough, the sweetness of the squash and the corn, and the smokiness of the sage and the gouda combine really well, and the fresh pepper and onion, while they're standard pizza things, really stand out against this background. This was a really good pizza, if I do say so myself.

Updated 4/23/11:
You'd think that using straight squash puree and cream like in the recipe above would be purer=better. But we tried it the other day with a readymade pasta sauce (Dave's Gourmet Butternut Squash Pasta Sauce - real good on ravioli), which had tomato and spices mixed in, and it was real good. Used browned ground beef, liberally seasoned with mesquite, and some chopped olives I had left over from another recipe. It came out even better than the first time.