OH how I love pizza!

Every Sunday hubby and I go to church then Central Market to grab a bite on the patio with the live band, and pick up some fresh produce after lunch. I love to explore all the specialty food items at Central market, and today I found a great foodie find! After raiding their beautiful produce section we headed over to the bakery where we found fresh baked pizza crust! They looked delicious, and they were only $1.50! I knew what we were making for dinner tonight. Lets get cooking!




Recipe: Quick and easy pizza

What you need:

Any vegetable your heart desires! We used red onion, green bell pepper, basil, garlic, and tomatoes.

3 TBSP Extra virgin olive oil

Sea salt

Pepper

Pre made pizza crust: Make sure to avoid processed pizza crust. There are a lot of frozen specialty crusts out there that are non-processed, but they are kind of pricey... $5 a crust just is not for me. Just get the CM brand made fresh for $1.50.

Pizza sauce: Of course you could always make your own, but that is not in the spirit of quick and easy. Cento has a pizza sauce that doesn’t have preservatives, taste great, low sodium, and only $1.50! Cento also uses San Marzano tomatoes from Italy that taste wonderful. I highly recommend any San Marzano tomato product. Their products are available a most stores, but just incase they aren’t… http://www.cento.com/ Then click shop online, and go to the sauce section. They actually have them cheaper there than they do at the grocery store!

Grated mozzarella (fresh mozzarella taste the best, but I know not all stores have it so just get what you can)

Pepperoni (smoked, not cured)

1. Preheat oven to 350

2. Finely chop garlic and mix with olive oil

3. Spread oil garlic mixture on pizza crust reserving 1 tsp

4. Bake crust for about 5 minutes.

5. Spread pizza sauce over crust.

6. Cover pizza with cheese. (amount is up to you)

7. Put pepperoni on pizza (important you put this on before the other toppings so crust won’t get soggy)

8. Season the tomatoes with the oil garlic mixture and a pinch of sea salt and pepper.

9. Put on all other toppings.

10. Bake in the oven till cheese is melted and bubbling. (no more than 15 minutes)



I would highly recommend baking this on a pizza stone of some sort. I do not have a pizza stone, but I do have a stone bar pan from Pampered Chef that worked out perfectly. The stone won’t burn the bottom, and it conducts heat evenly. Hubby and I wanted our pizza topped differently so he was in charge of one side and I was in charge of the other. We both got what we wanted, and we were happy!

Can you tell which side is hubby's? Yes it is the one that looks like there are no veggies on it, but I promise there are tons of veggies underneath all the cheese and pepperoni. I looked in to healthier options for pepperoni, but I only found soy versions. We do not eat soy since it is a high natural estrogen, but that is a different topic for another post. The best thing I found for us was smoked pepperoni instead of cured. All in all this was the BEST pizza I have had in a long time! 

Please feel free to get creative with this recipe. You could use pesto instead of pizza sauce. You could add olives, artichokes, jalapeños, goat cheese, feta cheese, pineapple, eggplant, and the list could go on forever.

A note about some of these ingredients: Pesto is made from pine nuts which is a tree nut, so of course do not use if you have a nut allergy. Cured meats and cheeses like feta and goat cheese, that are usually unpasteurized, contain a bacterium called Listeria. Pregnant women are much more susceptible to this bacterium which can cause several pregnancy complications, so please take EXTREME caution when eating these products. Make sure you heat up cured products to 160 degrees prior to eating in order to kill the bacteria. Most doctors recommend avoiding unpasteurized products all together during pregnancy.

http://www.americanpregnancy.org/pregnancycomplications/listeria.html