Homemade Pizza Love

I am pizza lover. Pure and simple. I could probably survive on pizza alone and be completely happy. And I like all kinds of different pizzas. Unfortunately, ordering pizza is both expensive and (generally) unhealthy.

So since my 2014 commitment is to cook more, order out less, and eat healthier, I figured–after 2 months without it–that I needed to ry some homemade pizza.I could have gone all out and made on of those cauliflower crusts I’ve got save on Pinterest. But I didn’t. I bought crust. In fact, I bought some thin & crispy personal-sized crusts because I was pretty sure Trent would want pepperoni and LOTS of cheese and have no interest in my planned veggie pizza. I may have bought the crust, but I did make the sauce myself instead of relying ons something in a jar.

I used this recipe. Here’s confession number 2: while I think it definitely would’ve been better in both taste and health to use real tomatoes, I did not do that this time (I plan to next time–maybe this summer when tomatoes are more in season)

: Collected ingredients to start: EVOO, Oregano, garlic, and red pepper flakes.

: Chopped two large cloves of garlic.

: Cooked the garlic in the olive oil.

: Added the dried oregano.

: I used 2 cans of diced tomatoes.

: Dumped them into the saucepan and added the 1 tsp. sugar.

: Added 1/2 tsp red pepper.

: Next up was salt & pepper.

: Added 1/2 tsp salt.

: Added 1/4 tsp pepper.

: Mixed and heat to boil. Reduced to low heat for simmer–left for 1.5 hours.

: After the mixture cooled, I used the Ninja to blend it up.

: This was the saucy end result. Yum!

Of course, sauce alone does not a pizza make! I decided my pizza would be veggies, specifically mushrooms, red onions, spinach, Kalamatta olives. I actually had a dream about making this pizza last weekend, which is what started this whole thing. So I basically followed my dream to make mine. 😉 First, I chopped up all my veggies (except the baby spinach leaves). Then, I sautéed them in a pan with EVOO over medium heat until the spinach leaves wilted. I used feta cheese for mine because feta is one of the lower calories, healthier cheeses (so sayeth Google). Also, it’s just a yummy treat on pretty much everything. I used a store-bought 3-cheese pizza blend for Trent’s pizza. We actually got three meals out of this: 2 dinners and a lunch (3 total mini pizzas each!). The first time I did Trent’s I put the meat under the cheese; he requested that I put the pepperoni slices on top of the cheese to see if it would make his pepperoni crunchier, which it did. Overall, this was a hit–and something I’ll do again.