Recipe: Baked Tomato and Goat Cheese Pizza
Making homemade pizza is never a bad idea. We know pizza is pretty spectacular already, and it’s a healthier alternative to dining out. Pizza is also not too difficult to make, particularly when you’re using a pre-made crust. That’s exactly what we’re doing here in this dish inspired by My Recipes. Let’s get to cooking!
The recipe calls for grilling your crust; however, if you’re like me and don’t have a mammoth grill handy, you can just bake it in the oven. In that case, you’ll want to follow the instructions on the crust packaging, which is usually about 15-18 minutes of actual cooking time. As you pre-heat your oven, get a nice layer of cooking spray onto your large baking sheet. Unroll the dough onto the sheet and make sure there aren’t any crazy flaps of dough bunched up. Once the dough is flattened out, give it a lil’ cooking spray love, too.
Most refrigerated crusts call for pre-baking the dough, so while that’s happening, get to work on your tomato(es). The recipe calls for one tomato, but if you’re a huge fan of ’em, you can get away with two smaller ones. You just want to make sure you’re removing the seeds from them – you’ll ideally want decent-sized chunks, so use a paring knife to get into the innards and pluck the seeds out.
So Close You Can Almost Taste That Goat Cheese Pizza
At this point, make like a showerhead and just sprinkle everywhere. Take your mozzarella and sprinkle it on the dough. Grab your goat cheese and sprinkle it. Throw your tomatoes on there, too. Try to keep everything evenly dispersed but don’t be too particular about it. So much of cooking is about feel, you know?
The original recipe doesn’t call for it, but green peppers are actually a delightful addition here. Dice them into small bits and sprinkle them on top of the pizza for a nice zingy burst of flavor.
When all of your toppings are done, toss the whole thing back into the oven for the amount of time indicated on your crust packaging. Let it sit for about 5-7 minutes after it comes out of the oven (burnt roofs of the mouth are NOT cool) cut it into squares, and consume it like the goat cheese pizza-loving beast you are.
Ingredients:
1 can refrigerated pizza crust dough (13.8oz)
1 large tomato – heirloom is the best choice for this, but if they’re not in season, go with your own personal favorite
Garlic clove, chopped in half
1 green pepper, diced
3/4 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese – use part-skim cheese if you want to go healthy and keep it lighter
3/4 cup of crumbled goat cheese
