Pesto Pizzas

Making our own pizzas at home has been a tradition in our little family since Megan and I first met years ago, and we usually end up rolling out some dough for a delicious baked pizza at least every few weeks.

After the fruit detour of our spicy strawberry chicken pizza we wanted to return more towards the main highway of pizza making, but with a few unexpected twists and turns still of course! Recently we tried mixing up sauces by using both tomato and pesto on the same pie. This particular experiment also utilized  fresh basil from our indoor herb garden (which will get its own blog entry in the near future).

We start by making our standard pizza dough and regular tomato sauce (which have both been covered in many blogs past). Things start simple enough with a traditional focus - shredded mozzarella and thin sliced tomato.

Here's where the twist happens though - Megan spoons on dollops of pesto all across the pizza almost like it's another topping. You could of course also simply mix the pesto with the tomato sauce for an even spread, but this was more visually appealing and would create a stronger contrast between the flavors.

The pizza pops in the oven, and then when it has about 4 or 5 minutes left we picked some fresh basil leaves from our garden and layered them on top.

Pop the pizza back in the oven so the basil just gets a quick cook through. If you want a more striking visual presentation and a bigger contrast, you could skip the cooking aspect and just toss the leaves on after the baking is completely done instead.

After a few minutes to cool I pull out the pizza cutter and slice off the first piece!

This was one of the tastiest pizzas we've ever done, and it will definitely be joining our regular rotation from now on out!

Another fun pizza experiment we tried lately used two different twists - wheat flour and a different sauce. Here we've put together our regular crust, but used wheat instead of white flour, which changes up both the texture and taste. It probably wouldn't be appropriate for every pizza type, but for this one it worked quite well and was a fun change of pace.

Instead of our usual sauce options - tomato, alfredo, ranch, etc. - we used some creamy pesto flavored Philadelphia cooking creme. We occasionally use these in place of other sauces as they regularly go on clearance for a dollar or more off the regular price at Smiths.

As with the last pizza, we're starting off our topping extravaganza with mozzarella and tomato slices.

We're going into veggie overdrive on this one however, adding on sliced mushrooms and whole garlic cloves. You may recall we first tried out using whole garlic cloves as a pizza topping nearly three years ago now after taking our Portland trek.

For another layer of cheesy awesome, Megan also coated everything in Paremsan cheese.

Here's the crispy wheat crust pizza fresh out of the oven:

This one was another success, with lots of delicious savory flavors and a mix of ingredients you don't normally see on the average pizza.