Pizza, Pizza!

You know that saying that goes something like "pizza is good even when it's bad"? Well, I disagree. Wholeheartedly. For me, pizza is one of those things that is rarely perfect. Don't get me wrong. I have a love for Pizza Hut that is totally inexplicable, so I'm not what I would consider a pizza snob by any stretch of the imagination. But more often than not, I actually like to make my own pizza at home, because that way I get to put everything I want on top of it. See, some of my toppings of choice don't come as standard toppings on any chain pizza I've ever come across (see avocado in picture above).

This week I opted for pizza-making at home, because when you start with a pre-made, store-bought crust, it takes at most 15 minutes to make...and this was set up to be one busy week. So, Monday night I broke out the Boboli and started piling on the ingredients (mostly whatever was in the fridge that I needed to use up). Here's what I ended up with (quantities are estimates, when given...I really need to start writing things down):

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Not-So-Homemade Pizza for One

ingredients:

• one personal-size, pre-made pizza crust (this time I used a Boboli one)
• Candoni sun-dried tomato pesto (this is stuff is on the incredible side)
  
• part skim, low moisture mozzarella cheese, shredded
• about 1 cup of a blend of spinach, arugula, and basil, chopped
• 1 tbsp red onion, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp red bell pepper, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup button mushrooms
• a handful of grape tomatoes, halved
• 1/4 small avocado, chopped
• crushed red pepper
• pine nuts
• sprinkling of feta cheese crumbles
  

prep:

• Preheat the oven according to crust directions. Chop all veggies (if they're not already chopped and stored in a hundred different plastic containers, like they are in my fridge)
• Place your pre-made crust on a cookie sheet and slather the crust with some sun-dried tomato pesto (seriously, I don't ever want to make pizza with anything else. It's that amazing). Refrain from eating it straight out of the jar, if you can.
  
• Sprinkle on a tiny bit of cheese (this will help everything else stick) and start layering the veggies. I started with the greens, to make a nice little bed for everything else. Then went the onions, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes.
• Sprinkle with crushed red pepper, if you like that kind of thing.
  
• Top with as much cheese as you want, within reason (I used the part-skim mozzarella and feta). Top the cheese with the avocado. Sprinkle on some pine nuts. Behold the mountain of pizza you've just created and be thankful that you remembered to put the crust on the cookie sheet before you started assembling.
  
• Pop in the oven and wait about 10 minutes until the cheese is golden.

Yum!