apple, sausage, and artichoke pizza

This is by far my favorite homemade pizza I've done.  To quote the kids, "this pizza tastes expensive... I bet you could get $100 a slice!"

I used homemade pizza dough. However, if you don’t want to make your own dough, to be honest, I find that trader joes and/or whole foods make an acceptable substitute, and cut down on the time it takes to make.

Ingredients:

pizza dough

tomato sauce, homemade or favorite jar (I’m a big fan of rao’s when choosing not to make my own)

4 fresh artichoke hearts, steamed and diced or 1 can of quartered hearts, drained

ground mild italian sausage

thinly sliced apple

1 Tbsp evoo

2 cups of shredded mozzarella 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400.

Heat the olive oil in a pan on medium high. Add loose sausage meat, and crumble while cooking. When browned, remove from heat and set to rest on a paper towel to drain the excess fat.

Stretch pizza dough on a parchment-lined cookie sheet or directly on a pizza stone if you have one. Spoon tomato sauce onto the dough. Sprinkle artichokes, apple slices and sausage over sauce. Cover pizza with cheese.

Bake on bottom rack for 10 minutes. Move to top rack for 10 minutes, or until cheese starts to get golden brown.