pizza // the classic

This simple and tasty pizza was inspired by a very good friend of our family, Thabang.  Thabang lives in Lesotho, (a small country surrounded by South Africa) and we had the pleasure of working with him for a year while he was in Canada learning about farming through a volunteer exchange program.  Thabang became part of our family, and would often come over for family dinners.  Whenever we would ask what he wanted to eat, he would almost always request "Homemade Chicken and Mushroom Pizza".

As we continued making pizzas, we started experimenting with more ingredients, adding more veggies, and some feta cheese for an extra kick!  This pizza has something for everyone in our family, caramelized onion and peppers, sauteed chicken and mushrooms, and my personal favourite, spinach!! 

Every time I make homemade pizza I think of Thabang.  I sincerely wish that he could come over to share this pizza with us, and have another family pizza night. 

Feel free to add more or less of any ingredients, leave out the mushrooms, add olives, pile on the spinach.  Make it your own!  And try not to eat the entire thing by yourself, you have to make sure you have leftovers so you can have cold pizza for breakfast the next day!

Classic Pizza

Ingredients:

1 cooked pizza crust (recipe here!)

2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup sweet onion

1 red pepper

5 large mushrooms

2 cloves of garlic

1-2 cups of chopped cooked chicken

1-2 cups of spinach

Cheddar Cheese (approx 4 cups grated)

Feta Cheese (half a cup crumbled)

Pizza sauce

Directions:

1)  Preheat oven to 350 F (or just leave it on if you are making a homemade pizza!)

2)  Heat olive oil on medium/high heat in a large frying pan.

3)  Once hot, add sliced onions, peppers and mushrooms.

4)  After the veggies have been cooking for 5-6 minutes add minced garlic and turn the heat down to medium.  Continue cooking veggies until the onions start to caramelize, this may take about 5-7 more minutes.  

5)  Add chicken to this mixture and stir until chicken is hot.

6)  Turn the burner off, and stir in roughly chopped spinach (this will wilt the spinach, but hopefully not cook it too much.  You don't want to obliterate your spinach, just warm it up).

7)  Spread pizza sauce on your cooked pizza crust, follow with your delicious veggie and chicken mixture, and top it all off with grated cheddar cheese and a bit of crumbled feta.

8)  *Bake in 350 F oven for 8 minutes, or until the cheese has melted and starts bubbling (we like to broil our pizza so the cheese starts browns a bit/gets crunchy!)

*This is our method for baking pizza, it assumes that you just took the hot homemade crust out of the oven, and that your top ingredients (ex. chicken, sauteed veggies) are already hot for the most part.  If you are using a crust that has not just been baked, you may have to adjust the baking time.

This pizza always hits the spot!  Loaded with veggies, chicken, and tons of cheese, there is never a complaint in our house about this pizza.  It is perfect on our homemade pizza crust, but also is really tasty on pita bread if you are in a hurry, or with cauliflower pizza crust for a gluten free alternative!

p.s.  ♥ jordyn & kelsey