Gimmeeeeee Piiizzzzaaaaa

Veggie Pizza

Just as Steve Carell once said, "I love lamp"... I love pizza. Me, Ellen, I looooooove pizza. Pizza was a staple at all sleepovers. Pizza is there for you when you are feeling so lazy that you don't even want to move so far so that you actually even have to find your phone to call the delivery man. It doesn't take very long to make, and can be made sooo many different ways. I'm a thin crust kind of girl myself, but can get down with deepdish. I am definitely not a fan of cheese stuffed crust. In fact, when I make pizza now, I don't even make room for crust. I kind of just put the ingredients everywhere. I have been making pizzas for about three years now, and don't think I have ever made the exact same one twice. I am all about getting creative with my ingredients, so the more experimental, the better.

I really am finicky with dough. Sometimes, it can be perfect, but most of the time it is not. Pie dough is so much easier to deal with. Much less sticky. I have made my own dough before for pizzas, but I prefer to just buy the Trader Joe's rosemary wheat dough that is pre-made. It is really tasty, and with enough flour, eventually works.

A delicious pizza restaurant in Eugene called The Pizza Research Institute (PRI) inspired me a few years ago to really go crazy with my ingredient themes. I once had a goat cheese, pear, and candied walnuts pizza from there and it was out of this world. They also had a pizza with squash on it, which was amazing. Zucchini and broccoli are two staples that I love to include in mine. I often use bolognese sauce as a base, but Riley also likes to make his own sauce, or even just omit sauce and substitute it with sliced tomato. For this recipe, I used half of each vegetable, because I really pack them on, and the pizza would be about 4 inches high if I included them whole. I hope you enjoy this simple recipe, and get down on some weggies! It's awesome because you knock out almost your entire daily "required" vegetable servings in one meal.

Ingredients:

1 package of pre-made pizza dough
1/2 zucchini
2 broccoli heads
1 package of fresh, soft mozzarella
1/2 green bell pepper
1/2 heirloom tomato
1/2 red onion
1 jar tomato basil sauce
1/4 cup shaved Parmesan
1 tablespoon olive oil, to drizzle dough before placing ingredients on top

Directions:

1. Take out pizza dough 30 minutes before you make the pizza. Place in a small bowl and cover with a damp paper towel, allowing it to rise and expand
2. Preheat oven to 450 degrees
3. Prepare all of your vegetables, by dicing and slicing them as you please. Do the same with your mozzarella

4. Place vegetables in an order as you please. I drizzled the dough with olive oil after getting it stretched out first and foremost. (I actually totally didn't do this because I got frustrated with the dough and made Riley do it).

Then I placed the ingredients in this order: sauce, red onion, mozzarella, zucchini, bell pepper, broccoli, & shaved Parmesan.

5. Cook for 40-50 minutes, checking every 20 minutes to make sure nothing is burning. Honestly, I have even cooked mine for an hour and it was fine. Et voila!

If you have not seen the Mary Kate and Ashley video of them and friends singing about pizza, you are truly missing out. My good friend Jimmy Fargo showed this video to me about a year ago, and it never fails to make me laugh. Seriously. And the video of them singing it slowed down is even better. I will share it with you now. I highly recommend spending three minutes watching it.