One Mountain Away
Some books lend themselves to cooking, to recipes and long descriptions of meals eaten slowly and savored. One Mountain Away is not one of them. Charlotte Hale, the main character, is rarely hungry. Vegetarian Harmony Stoddard, who feeds Charlotte whenever she has the chance, tends toward fresh vegetables and brown rice–which now that I think about it, might be the reason Charlotte doesn’t eat.
One thing both women would agree on, though, are the star qualities of Eggplant Provolone Pizza. In fact this very pizza is the reason the two characters meet.
Since Charlotte doesn’t like to cook and Harmony doesn’t have much time to, here’s an easy version.
| Cook Time | 12-15 minutes |
| Servings |
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- 1 Premade frozen pizza crust or pizza dough from your grocery store, stretched to fit a 12″ pizza pan
- 1 Eggplant (approximately 1 lb.) peeled and sliced in 1/3″ rounds
- 2-3 tbsp Olive Oil
- 3-4 ounces Provolone Cheese thinly sliced
- .5 cup Olives Sliced
- 2 cloves Garlic Minced
- .5 tsp Red Pepper Flakes
Ingredients
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- Brush eggplant with oil and a sprinkle of salt. Line a pan with foil or use a rack coated with non-stick spray set over a cookie sheet. Broil in oven until golden brown, turning to brush with remaining oil and finish. Let cool.
- Preheat oven to 475 degrees.
- While you’re waiting for eggplant to cool, ready crust according to package instructions. Then lightly saute garlic in a small skillet, add olive oil and red pepper flakes and set aside.
- Place cooled eggplant slices on pizza crust, overlapping if necessary. Sprinkle with sliced olives, drizzle with garlic oil, and top with cheese.
- Bake for 12-15 minutes until cheese has melted and crust is golden brown.
This recipe is a simplified variation of Geoffrey Selling’s Eggplant Pizza published in Sept. 1999 in Gourmet magazine.