Pear & Arugula un-Flatbread (The Quest for the Perfect Flatbread, Part 1)

There's a little something that I do when I find something I really like at a restaurant:  I try to figure out what they did to make it taste so darn good.  See, I have this idea that if some cook in a restaurant can do it, so can I.  The problem is that other than the Olive Garden, most restaurants aren't willing to tell you how they do it.  (The Olive Garden, however, posts many of their recipes online, which if you ask me is quite wonderful.)  This means that if I try something that I really really REALLY want to have at home I am then on the quest to make it happen.  Which would be how I learned to make some great avgolemono soup... but that is for another post, another time.  This particular quest that I am on right now is how to make the pear and arugula flatbread from this place:

Have you tried this stuff???  This flatbread is so incredibly delicious that I cannot even explain it to you.  It is, wow... top notch.  Top notch.  But alas, there is no recipe out there for it so it is up to me to find out how to do it.

First, I played around with my toppings.  We tried pears with arugula and blue cheese broiled on toast.  It was nice, but I was missing something.  So I went back to The Cheesecake Factory, ordered myself some of that flatbread, and realized I needed caramelized onions.

That was easy.  So easy.  I had never caramelized onions before, but now I feel a whole new world is opened up to me.  I want to put caramelized onions on burgers, on fish, on everything.

My husband told me it made the house smell like In-n-Out.  That means it was a success ;)

Then I needed to find out how to make flatbread.  According some website I found via a Google search, I could make flatbread with pizza dough. 

Well. 

Maybe it worked for them, but not for me.  My flatbread, as yummy as it was, was not FLAT bread, but Puffy bread.  But that's OK... I am on the right start and I am not done yet.  I will make the perfect pear and arugula flatbread sometime soon, I promise you that.

In the meantime, I don't mind enjoying Pear and Arugula Puffy-bread and I thought you might enjoy it, too ;)

 
THIS TIME --

INGREDIENTS:
1 pack fresh pizza dough
1 pear, chopped
1 cup arugula
1/2 cup soft cheese
3T olive oil
1/2 white onion
salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS:

1. Follow directions for pizza dough or flat bread dough for prep. 
2. To caramelize onions, chop the onion into slices.  Cook with 1T of olive oil over medium-low heat, stirring often.  Let cook for about 30 minutes.
3. When pizza dough is ready, spread out in shape you want and spread 2T of olive oil on top.  Put all toppings on the dough and cook for 8-10 minutes on 400F.

COST:  $5.20          COST PER SERVING --
                                       As the main dish (2): $2.60
                                       As a side (4): $1.30