Spinach Proscuitto Pizza

When I was in elementary school, the first Friday of every month was Domino's day.  Instead of crappy school pizza, the school ordered Domino's, and you let them know in the morning how many slices you'd want.

If it wasn't Domino's day, I usually got to have a pizza Lunchable-- which was so much more exciting than my usual: turkey and american cheese on a Martin's potato roll with margarine.  That's seriously what I wanted every day for lunch.

In third grade, there was a contest held to see who could read the most books and complete book reports by the end of the year-- whoever won got a pizza party.  Another girl and I decided to match each other book for book-- we knew we'd be each others' only competition, so we rigged it to win together.  We got our own pizza party.

Growing up my family had pizza night at my grandparents' at least once a week.

Nowadays, whenever my brother and I are home in NJ at the same time, we get pizza at least twice.  We're big fans of the eggplant pizza, penne vodka pizza, margherita pizza... we go hard when we allow ourselves to eat carbs, which is almost never.

Pizza has, as clearly portrayed above, always been kind of a special occasion thing for me.  Unfortunately, New England just doesn't know good pizza.  My co-workers were raving about a pizza place here in NH, so we went for lunch one day... First of all, every single one of them ate their pizza with a knife and fork.  I felt impolite for picking up my pizza, folding it, and housing it.  I did it anyway.... and the pizza was just mediocre.  They also dip their pizza in ranch???  No thanks, pass the red pepper flakes please.

Had enough of my pizza anecdotes?  Here's what we had for dinner last Friday (because Friday is pizza day!)

Spinach Prosciutto Pizza

you'll need:

• 1 whole wheat pizza crust
• 2 cups of pizza sauce
• 1 T olive oil
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 small onion, chopped
• red pepper flakes
• salt
• black pepper
• dried oregano
• dried basil
• dried parsley
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 3 large handfuls of spinach
• 1/4 pound of thinly sliced proscuitto
• Fresh mozzarella cheese
• Parmesana Reggiano cheese

Preheat oven to 400.

Roll out pizza dough onto baking sheet or pizza stone. Poke crust a few times with a fork and then pre-bake for 10 minutes.  

While dough is cooking, saute onions, pepper, garlic, in the olive oil for about 3 minutes.  Add pizza sauce and spices and simmer until dough is done baking.

Spread sauce mixture onto the crust.  Next add all of the spinach in a layer.  Then add slices of proscuitto-- I don't lay them completely flat, rather I keep them scrunched all over the pizza like ribbons so that some of the edges get crispy.  Next add thin slices of fresh mozzarella all over the top.  Finish by sprinkling parmasen cheese on top.

Bake for 20 minutes-- serve with good bottle of red wine.  We've been into red blends lately.

Nothing comes close to Jersey pizza, except maybe pizza made by a Jersey girl!