Cold Veggie Pizza

Okay, a girl's gotta be creative when the "standard" recipe for something she likes consistently includes ingredients that would never be found in her kitchen. One of those things she likes: cold veggie pizza.

Every recipe calls for mayo (um..no thanks) in the spread and Pillsbury crescent rolls for the crust (sorry, no over processed, frozen Pillsbury products at The Wedge, or in my kitchen). I was also amazed by how many recipes called for canned veggies and the like. Ewe.

Fresh, fresh, fresh is the name of the game in our house, so...

Here's what I came up with:

The crust: I bought a pre-made pizza crust from The Wedge (made right there in their bakery) the other night, and it was so very tasty. I thought, "why not use a pizza crust?". I was really concerned it wouldn't work - would either get too crispy or wouldn't cook thoroughly without getting crispy, etc. I baked it at 425 instead of the recommended 450, for 10 minutes. It came out perfectly done and not crispy. Just what I was hoping for.

Next the spread: Like I said, most cold pizza spreads called for mayo, and if you read about my egg salad creation, you know that doesn't work here. I figured cream cheese should be just fine without the mayo, but perhaps we need a thinner consistency. So, I opted for Greek yogurt. I've never had Greek yogurt, but I've heard it called for in many recipes from spreads to salad dressings. I put about 1/2 cup of the yogurt and an entire 8 oz container of cream cheese into the food processor, after using said processor for chopping up a couple handfuls of spinach. So, once spinach was chopped and blended in with the yogurt and cheese, I then added a bunch of fresh dill (mmm...dill just screams Summer, doesn't it?).

Set aside spread (give it a taste or two, of course), and move onto the veggies...

(pizza crust is baking, and then cooling, during this time)

Of course, you can use whatever veggies you like. This time, I used: Asparagus, Red Pepper, Green Onion and Carrot.

All chopped up into little pieces and mixed together (throw some salt in there too). Mind you, the only veggies in this recipe that are locally available right now are the asparagus, green onion and spinach. I think this would be good with just those items, too, if you wanted to be more strict about eating local. I wanted a lot of flavor and color this time, so I opted for a couple of organic produce items from my co-op.

Okay, crust is cooled, spread is made and veggies are chopped and mixed (and smelling oh-so-yummy). I wanted my pizza to be portable this time, and the perfect container was one I saved from a store-bought cheesecake (reduce/reuse/recycle!). Using it just meant cutting the crust down a bit. To my surprise, I was able to cut damn-near the perfect circle to fit into the container, and had leftover crust pieces for dipping in any leftover spread.

I stuck the crust into the container, thinking this would be smart, but after getting everything on top and attempting to cut through (the crust is a bit chewy - it totally works for this, but is tougher to get a pizza cutter through), I think it best to leave it on a bread board and load it up there. Then you can use a nice, sharp knife for cutting. The rest is simple: spread on the spread, sprinkle on the veggies, and shred some cheddar over the top.

And it's a hit! The only complaint from the hubby was that the pieces were too big, so it got a bit messy trying to tear into it bite-by-bite. But, overall, a really nice little dinner for two.

(I ended up using only about half the spread, and about 2/3 the veggies I had chopped up. I threw them together and Michael took that, along with the leftover crust pieces, for lunch today)