Better Than CiCi's

One of my weird talents that I pride myself on is being able to create meals out of random leftovers and whip up new culinary creations. Sometimes they turn out great, and sometimes they make our stomachs hurt. I have not bought any meat at the grocery store in about a month now, and not for any reason other than by the time I get to the meat department it is the end of my shopping, my cart is overflowing and I am just done. So a lot of our dinners lately have been full-out vegetarian creations. Sorry John.

This afternoon, having nothing planned for dinner, I decided to make my favorite "we're out of groceries meal"--home-made pizza.

*side-note: another weird quirk of mine is buying produce that I've never bought in hopes that I can learn how to cook and eat it* I happened to have a raw artichoke sitting in the fridge from my last produce adventure and decided to buckle down and figure out how to cook it. An entire 45 minutes later (btw canned artichokes taste just as good thank you very much) I had one cooked artichoke, and a counter full of veggies I had just picked from our garden. I dug deep into the freezer for our last 2 pieces of split chicken breasts, defrosted them and roasted them with a bit of olive oil and salt in the oven for 45 minutes. Then I whipped up my pizza dough and started piling on the toppings. It turned out so yummy that I thought I would share the recipe with any pizza lovers out there. The whole meal cost about $4.

Roasted Chicken Basil & Artichoke Pizza

Ingredients:

-pizza crust (store bought or homemade, but I recommend homemade, its easy)

-olive oil

- mozzarella cheese

-fresh Parmesan cheese

-2 Roma tomatoes chopped

-1 yellow onion chopped

-10 basil leaves, torn

-1 cup artichoke hearts chopped

-1 cup roasted chicken, shredded (easy to omit if you don't feel like it)

-garlic salt

Directions:

Heat oven to 425 degrees. Dust pizza stone or pan with corn meal (this is key to a crispy crust). Drizzle with olive oil. Top with veggies, chicken and basil, then cover with cheeses. Sprinkle with garlic salt. Bake 15-20 minutes until crust is golden brown. Enjoy!