idaho potato

Pizza is a really big deal in my house, but I say this and I know that I’m not the only one. Pizza is a really big deal in a lot of our houses. So while I did share a Meatball Pizza recently, I felt like it’s time for yet another pizza pie recipe on the blog. I’ve been traveling a lot lately, just coming back from my trip to Europe and a recent trip to Idaho shortly thereafter. I visited Idaho for the very first time in my life thanks to the Potato Idaho Commission who invited me to attend their Idaho Potato Harvest 2016. With every trip I take, I tend to explore the city through it’s food. But for some crazy reason I always go into thinking, how can I turn a dish from this city into a pizza?

Some of the best pizzas I’ve made have come from this idea of turning my travels into an out-of-this-world pizza. So for instance, I made a Sausage and Pickled Jalapeño Pizza from my trip to San Fransisco. And then I made a Jambalaya Pizza in honor of my trips to New Orleans when I work with my friend Joy. Then we mustn’t forget about this Beer Cheddar and Bratwurst Pizza when I visited Wisconsin for the first time. The way these posts go is that I create a pizza that reminds me of that particular city and then I share some images from my trip. It’s a fun way to break up the normal usual posts I create on here but also to share some non-food photos with you because I sometimes like to take pictures that don’t involve food. My degree is in photography after all. 

 
I was in Idaho for about 4 days where I learned all things potatoes. It was like taking a class in college called Potatoes 101, but I gotta tell you that I wish that was really a class in school because I was aced it with flying colors. Anyhow we saw how potatoes grow in the ground, in clusters, which I had no idea that they did. Then we learned all about how they’re harvested and removed from the ground with tractors and then picked up through all these hi-tech conveyer belts and dropped into trucks and then into large sheds that hold millions of pounds of potatoes at a time. It’s crazy. 

 
Then we visited various potato factories and plants where the potatoes are delivered and then washed, peeled, cut, fried, frozen, bagged and boxed before being shipped to different fast food restaurants. It was so great to see because it was all done by machines. I felt like I was in a real life episode of Unwrapped on The Food Network. The machines would zip all the potatoes at a thousand miles (maybe not that fast) and they’d be rinsed and peeled with steam and cut and fried all within seconds. It was insane to watch. We also visited the Idahoan Potato plant where they dehydrate potatoes and make instant mashed potatoes, dried potatoes gratin and soups. This plant was my favorite of the trip because I learned so much about the process of dehydrating potatoes that I never would’ve dreamt of. 

Idaho is also the home to a Potato Museum. A museum dedicated to my favorite vegetable? Sign me up. That’s the kind of art I can easily get behind. In my personal opinion, the museum’s biggest claim to fame is a giant baked potato sculpture out on the front lawn, complete with a pat of butter on top. I’m trying to figure out how I can bring this to my house. I have a spot for it mapped out already, right in my living room. Or maybe in my bedroom so that I can see it overnight before bed. I think Julian would be okay with this. 

 
One of the greatest things I did on this trip was horseback riding in a beautiful ranch called Linn Canyon Ranch. It was the first time I ever rode a horse and I was both scared and excited. Luckily I didn’t fall and I survived to tell the tale. My horse’s name was Buddy and we bonded instantly because I told him right off the bat to please not run away and throw me off. It was an hour ride through gorgeous mountains in the middle of nowhere Idaho with all of the changing colors of the leaves and trees everywhere. It felt like autumn, which means a lot to me because being born and raised in Los Angeles, I’ve never experienced a real autumn in my life. That alone made the trip worthwhile. 

 
Although this happens to be a recap of my recent trip to Idaho, this is also a small recap of my trip to Rome the week before Idaho. It’s an unofficial recap because I’ll have a much better Europe recap later in the week. But with that being said, I had this Potato and Sausage Pizza Bianca in Rome in a small pizza place called Dar Poeta and it was amazing! So amazing that we went back the next day and had it again. After learning all about potatoes last week, and having this pizza, I was determined to recreate it at home and share it with you all so that we can all eat potato pizza and be in heaven. 

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