Put a little pizazz in your life (with pizza)

It’s time for an admission here: I love pizza.

I mean I love pizza in a way that is not normal. I mean that I think it’s a delectable meal and altogether beautiful. More than that, I like to make pizza.

I’m not talking about putting a frozen pizza into the oven or buying that refrigerated, canned dough and making a pizza. I’m talking homemade crust and interesting ingredients tailor-made to suit your personal tastes.

That’s why I decided to make a pizza this past weekend and invite a few friends over. It’s too bad that only one of them took me up on the offer, because while the pizza didn’t turn out as well as I would have liked, it was still pretty good. And I’ve still got another crust left to make, so the opportunity to improve is just around the corner!

But first, a recipe for you: Mandy’s everything but meat pesto pizza. But first, meet some of the players in this little culinary excursion.

1. Make your pizza dough. (This time, I used the Pioneer Woman’s recipe for pizza dough and it was pretty good. I’ve also had good luck Mitch’s pizza dough recipe and I like that recipe because it’s easy to make in the bread machine, which is especially appealing because as much as I like baking, I don’t like messing with doughs.) Stretch or roll the dough out to the appropriate size for the baking sheet or pizza stone or whatever you’re using. I used my Pampered Chef pizza stone which is one of my prized possessions.

2. Chop the grape tomatoes. I used about 1/2 a pint because a lot of other stuff was going to be happening in this pizza. I just cut the tomatoes in half and put them in a bowl.

3. Chop 3 large cloves of garlic. Stir the chopped garlic into the bowl with the tomatoes and let them hang out together while you get everything else ready.

4. Mince 5 sundried tomatoes. Mix these with the fresh tomatoes and garlic, then let everything sit.

5. Chop 2 large mushrooms. (Clean them first!)

6. Wash, then chop 4 large fresh basil leaves. The way I would recommend cutting the basil is to used the chiffonade technique. That’s basically a fancy way of saying that you’re going to roll the leaves together in a little tube, then slice through that tube, creating thin little ribbons of basil.

7. Chop small handful of fresh baby spinach.

8. Prep the crust by spreading about 4 tablespoons of pesto onto it. I like to use pesto as the sauce for pizza sometimes rather than the expected marinara. But, I didn’t particularly like this pesto and I usually bulk up the pesto sauce for pizzas by stirring in a handful of Parmesan cheese and sometimes chopped, white mushrooms. This makes it thicker and meatier, if that makes any sense. But I forgot this time. . . .oops!

8. Place slices of fresh mozzarella on top of the pesto, then top that with the tomato/garlic mixture. Sprinkle a little Parmesan cheese on top of this. Then top with the spinach and mushrooms. Use the microplane your friend Mindy gave you and fight the urge to kiss it.

9. Top all of this with shredded cheese, as much as you’d like on your finished pizza. I used mozzarella, six Italian cheese mix, and parmesan.)

10. Top with more slices of fresh mozzarella, adding a little bit of red pepper flakes just for kicks.

11. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until done. Also, just to make it looked pretty, I turned the broiler on at the very end to brown up the cheese and make the pizza look all browned and beautiful.

Serve with a spinach and bacon salad (2 cups washed fresh baby spinach, 1.5 chopped mushrooms, 6-7 halved grape tomatoes, 4 slices of bacon crumbled) topped with hot Italian dressing (an Italian dressing you’ve made or bought heated in the microwave for about 20 seconds).

Ingredients: Crust (whatever recipe you make, you will need yeast, olive oil, and flour) prepared pesto (buy a jar, make your own, whatever makes you happy) Fresh mozzarella (2 balls) Grape tomatoes (1/2 pint) 3 large cloves of garlic 5 sundried tomatoes, chopped Two large mushrooms, sliced 4 large basil leaves, cut in chiffonade style Small handful of spinach, chopped 1/2 bag of shredded Italian or pizza mix cheese 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese 1/8 tsp red pepper flakes

Time: about an hour

Difficulty level: medium

Soundtrack: the essential Bob Dylan