Pizza, Pizza

Pizza is one of my favorite foods, hands down.  I have been eating really good pizza all my life, but my favorite is still the kind I make at home.  I have tried making my own crust, but actually prefer to skip that part and use pre-made dough.  My favorite brand is House of Pasta - it comes frozen with two separate doughs inside the package.  Just leave it out for a few hours to thaw and rise, and the dough is ready.  One dough will make a pretty good sized pizza (enough for 2 - 4 people depending on appetites).  Instead of making one big pie, I usually split the dough and press it into two lightly-oiled 9" cake pans.  It's easier to work with and not as messy when the dough contained.  It also allows me to make 2 kinds of pies without the different toppings running together.

So, last night I was in the mood for pizza but didn't have any tomato sauce or mozzarella cheese. No problemo.  I had fresh basil.  I made a quick pesto with basil leaves, garlic, pine nuts, freshly grated parm, salt, pepper and extra virgin olive oil using my mini-prep food processor.  Pesto served as the sauce on my first pie.  I topped it with goat cheese and (after the pizza was cooked) sundried tomatoes.

I made the second pie in the style of a white pizza.  I topped the crust with slices of provolone then added a mixture of sauteed onion, spinach, artichokes and ricotta cheese.  After baking in the oven at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes, dinner was ready.  I think my favorite last night was the white pie - it was fabulous.

The beauty of it all is that although I did not have traditional pizza ingredients, I was still able to make delicious pies with other ingredients I already had in the fridge.  Yet another reason to love pizza...it can be anything you want!