Now, THIS was a success if I’ve ever seen one!
Awhile back, The Pioneer Woman featured French bread pizzas over at her place, and I was instantly reminded of the same style of pizza my family used to make when I was growing up. When appetites are soaring and time is running short, there’s just nothing better than a good quick-bake pizza!
Back when I was a kid, we topped our pizzas with pepperoni. Today, as a full-grown vegetarian, the star of the show was a couple of links of spicy vegetarian chorizo (we used LightLife tonight), sliced into thin coins. Same principle, different protein – and an excellent result!
The weather was beautiful up here in Virginia today, so on my lunch break I ventured out to purchase some fresh French bread. It rode in the car with me after work to snuggle with dogs at the animal shelter, and then it rode home after I picked up LeeLee. When we got home, I pulled out a baking sheet and got to work. First I sliced the bread crosswise, and then I cut each half straight down the middle lengthwise to create, in total, four slices of bread. I laid them all face-up on the baking sheet (they barely fit!) and then topped each with pizza sauce.
Once the sauce had covered all the nooks and crannies, I added some cheese – a cheddar-mozzarella blend on two, a vegan mozzarella on the other two – and then topped each pizza slice with plenty of chorizo. I dotted each half with some sliced black olives to finish them off, and then put the sheet into the oven at 450 for 15 minutes. When the timer dinged, the cheese was nicely melted and the bread was pleasingly crusty. And the kitchen was filled with a wonderful aroma of pizza – the best!
We paired our French bread pizzas with a simple tossed salad and feasted appropriately. By “appropriately,” I mean we downed two of the four pizza slices and polished off most of the salad. Which leaves us with two more pizzas to enjoy for lunch tomorrow! I’m looking forward to it already.
:)