homemade made easily.

Happy #winewednesday everyone!

Can anyone tell me what’s better with wine than pizza? Anyone? Yeah, didn’t think so :).

With that, today’s post is all about homemade pizza, made easily.

I consider myself a pizza aficionado – I love all types of pizza and crave it on the regular. Last night I had a craving but wanted to do a “homemade pizza”. Now it was 5PM on a Tuesday night, I had no time to make dough from scratch as my hanger level was increasingly rising, so I scrowed pinterest for a recipe that sounded easy and stopped over at the grocery store to see if they had any pre-made dough balls.

Searching the grocery store I couldn’t find any pre-made dough so I decided to test out Pillsbury’s Thin Pizza Crust found in the pre-made cookie isle. This was my first experience with this type of dough and let me tell you, it won’t be my last.

I easily opened the packging and rolled it out onto my Wilton’s pizza stone – I lightly brushed the dough with some extra virgin olive oil and then began to put together the recipe I found – Caramelized Onion, Bacon and Spinach Pizza.

I altered the recipe just a bit (literally, one alternation) substituing the bacon for some turkey bacon. The recipe was super easy to follow and the smells coming from my kitchen were mouthwatering.

If you are short on time but are #cravingcurrently a non-store made pizza on the table for dinner, grab some Pillsbury thin pizza crust and the below ingredients – trust me it’ll be love at first bite.

Ingredients

• 1 tube of Pillsbury Thin Pizza Dough
• 7 slices of Jennie-O Turkey Bacon
• 3 Tbsp olive oil, divided
• 8 oz baby spinach
• 1 large red onion, sliced 1/4-inch thick slices
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tsp granulated sugar
• 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 1 large clove garlic
• 2 Tbsp flour
• 3/4 cup milk
• 6 oz low-moisture mozzarella cheese, shredded
• 2 oz parmesan cheese, finely shredded

Directions

• Preheat oven to 475 degrees – throw your pizza stone in the oven to preheat as well, it helps crisp the crust.
• Open pizza dough tube and place onto pizza stone or pizza pan. Brush top with 1 Tbsp olive oil and let rest 10 minutes.
• Heat 1 Tbsp olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add spinach and saute just until wilted. Transfer to several layers of paper towels and squeeze some of the excess liquid from spinach, set aside.
• Add another 1 Tbsp olive oil to skillet and set over medium heat. Add onions, season lightly with salt and saute 10 minutes. Add sugar and cook until they begin to caramelize, about 5 – 10 minutes longer, adding a few tbsp water as needed to prevent them from drying and burning. Stir in balsamic vinegar and cook 1 minute longer, set aside.
• In a small saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Add flour and garlic and cook, stirring constantly, 1 minute. While whisking, slowly pour milk into flour mixture. Season with salt and pepper to taste and bring mixture just to a boil stirring constantly then remove from heat.
• Spread white sauce evenly over pizza, leaving crust uncoated. Top with half of the mozzarella and half of the parmesan, then add spinach, bacon and onions. Top with remaining half of the mozzarella and parmesan. Bake in preheated oven 11 – 13 minutes until cheese is melted and crust is golden.
• ENJOY!

Cheers!

M