Spinach Artichoke Pizza

It's no secret that when Patrick left Chicago and came to Duke his love of Chicago deep-dish pizza most certainly came with him. I think in general we're not the biggest pizza fans and will usually choose some other restaurant to go out to. When you put these two things together you get one married couple that hardly ever orders pizza take-out but still occasionally goes to a pizza restaurant. If we are heading to a pizza restaurant around town it's usually either Mellow Mushroom, California Pizza Kitchen, or Brixx. If Patrick found a suitable restaurant serving an authentic Chicago deep-dish pizza we would probably go there a lot! Fortunately Patrick has found a decent homemade version that he enjoys but it is a very time consuming recipe.

Since we're not going out to get pizza I still crave it every now and then. I've discovered the whole wheat pizza dough balls at Harris Teeter and pick them up for a simple pizza meal when the mood strikes. We're able to customize these pizzas exactly how we want and usually that's just with fresh veggies. We've made a veggie pizza, mushroom pizza, and pesto pizza in the past. On this particular evening we branched our a bit more -- we split the dough ball 4 ways for personal pizzas and made a spinach-artichoke version! Quite tasty; read on to see what we did! We read a few different recipes for the pizza topping but didn't find anything exactly like we wanted. Finally we just both started making the pizza and putting our ideas together.

Spinach and Artichoke Pizza
Flatten pizza dough and place on a baking sheet dusted with corn meal.
Drizzle olive oil on dough and then sprinkle with Italian cheese mix.
Meanwhile mix together 1 can of chopped artichoke hearts, 1 handful of spinach, 1/2 diced red onion, a few tablespoons of olive oil, bit of minced garlic, and red pepper flakes.
Divide artichoke mixture evenly among pizzas.
Bake at 450F for 10-15 minutes or until crust is golden and cheese is melted.