Tuesday 5 June 2012

Sauceless Spinach Pizza


So it seems I've come full circle in my eating habits. As a young kid I remember always eating spinach (cooked spinach to be exact), but somewhere in my teen years I fell victim to the I don't eat/like spinach curse. Well turns out, when you are faced with nothing to eat except a salad bar that has decaying romaine lettuce, or fresh and lively looking spinach, the spinach will win out every time. So a new love for spinach fruit salad later (one day I'll post the recipe for this), and I'm moving on to bigger and better things. Better because, who can go wrong when you add a whole head of garlic to a pizza? Yeah, that's what I thought. Apologies ahead for any foul garlic breath later on, but it most definitely is worth it.

For the crust, we just used a pre-made thin crust from Costco. Next time will be the fresh dough attempt with the new mixer. But, you can use whatever crust suits you. We also used two types of mozzarella, a block of partly skimmed cheese which we grated, in addition to a ball of fresh mozzarella.

When I cook, I'm more of a-little-of-this, a-little-of-that, type of person. So these measurements are not an exact science (nor will any cooking recipe be that I make up for that matter). What I'm trying to say, is use this as a guide line. If you like a lot of cheese, by all means, use more. If you can't bear the thought of not being able to go out in public due to fear of bad garlic breath, feel free to use less. It's your kitchen after all, and have fun with it.

Ingredients

Makes: 1 Pizza

1 Pizza Crust
Olive Oil
1 Small Head of Garlic
1 Tbsp Butter
2 Chicken Breasts
3 C. Fresh Spinach
1/2 C. Mushrooms, sliced
3/4 C. Mozzarella, grated
3/4 C. Fresh Mozzarella, cut into slices

Directions

~Preheat oven to 425 F

~On prepared crust, drizzle olive oil and brush over to coat entire top surface.  Use as much as is necessary to lightly coat crust.

~Mince garlic, but separate 2 cloves worth and set aside for later.

~Spread garlic evenly over the olive oiled crust. Make sure you don't have any large clumps of garlic in one spot. Set crust aside.

~Heat skillet and add butter. Once melted, toss in spinach and 2 cloves worth of minced garlic. Saute just until spinach begins to soften. Remove from heat.

~Prepare chicken and cut into bite size cubes. Heat skillet and saute cubes until just cooked. Make sure to not over cook as they will still be spending a few minutes in the oven and you don't want it to dry out.

~Place chicken onto pizza, next add the spinach and mushrooms.

~Top with the shredded mozzarella and then finish off with the fresh slices of mozzarella.

~Place pizza into oven. Bake until cheese starts to bubble and brown slightly. Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly before cutting.

Enjoy

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