summer zucchini pesto pizza

Ingredients:

10 oz pizza dough, store bought or homemade

3/4 cup basil pesto sauce, store bought or homemade

1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1 cup shredded jack cheese

1 small zucchini, sliced

1/4 yellow bell pepper, sliced

1 small shallot, sliced

4 mushrooms, sliced

Directions:

About an hour before cooking start time, remove dough from the fridge, and out of any packaging it was in. I like to rest on marble dusted with ap flour, after rolling into a ball. After 30 minutes, stretch out into your preferred pizza shape. This should make a approximately 10 inch round or 12 x 9 rectangular crust.

Preheat oven to 500, with pizza stone on lower 1/3.

While I cook on a pizza stone, I will make the pizza on parchment paper and transfer parchment to the stone… I find the crust gets just as crispy as direct cooking, without the mess or transfer trouble.

Sprinkle cornmeal on parchment cut to the right size of your stone, and top with formed crust.

Brush with pesto and then a layer of cheese. Spread out zucchini, pepper, mushrooms and shallots over top, and sprinkle more cheese over veggies.

Bake on pizza stone for 7 - 10 minutes, until crust is golden brown on bottom and cheese is golden and bubbly.

Note: If you don’t have a pizza stone, I find that par baking the pizza crust for 7 minutes on the lower 1/3 of the oven on a parchment covered cookie sheet before topping helps to create a crispier and fully cooked crust.