Ricotta pesto pizza - weeknight friendly meal

My basil plants are growing like crazy. What am I to do with all of this pesto? Well, I recently had something of a "pizza week" and the first pizza on the menu was ricotta, pesto and tomato. This would fall into the "white pizza" category. If you're not familiar, that means it doesn't have any tomato sauce on it but ricotta cheese serves as the sauce, which is not particularly low calorie but tasty none-the-less.

This is a very simple pizza combination and perfect for a weeknight meal and another use of fresh pesto you might have (directions here) from a basil explosion. I used a pre-made Pillsbury crust but if I were doing this on a weekend I would try to make my own dough because I found the pre-made crust to be adequate but not delicious.

Ingredients

1 ½ cups of ricotta

2 Tb of thyme

½ cup of Parmesan cheese

1 Pillsbury thin pizza crust *or other, note that Pillsbury crusts must be pre-baked for 5 minutes

1 medium tomato, sliced

Rough directions:

Mix thyme with ricotta and spread on prepared pizza crust and sprinkle with Parmesan. Place small spoonfuls of pesto on top of ricotta and finish by spreading sliced tomatoes on top. Bake for 8-10 minutes at 400 degrees or according to the directions for the pizza crust.

Looks good doesn't it? While one full-sized pizza is a too much for even two meals, this was quick and easy to make, making a single person friendly.

Fresh pesto

Basil leaves are so aromatic they call your name as you walk past, or so I assume, I've never walked past without stopping for a sniff. The plants trumpet the delights of fresh pesto, caprese salad and real napoli pizza.

My basil plant started growing like crazy, especially considering the small pot it calls home. It was growing so much, I had to buy a food processor, seriously, it was a requirement. Plus I found an amazing deal for a small Cuisinart food processor online and now I can make hummus too.

I made just enough to use for one large serving of pasta or about a 1/4 cup.

Ingredients:
20-30 basil leaves
1 clove of garlic
~3 tablespoons of olive oile
2 tablespoons of pine nuts (or walnuts)
1/4 Parmesan or Romano cheese
sprinkling of sea salt

equipment: food processor

Place nuts and garlic and cheese in food process and chop them up. When they are corsely chopped, add salt and basil leaves and pour small amount of olive on top, reserving additional oil to add later (it helps coat the leaves and get them to settle down toward the blades). Chop until fine and well mixed, adding additional olive oil as needed.

Perfection. Or it will be next time - I used way too much garlic, as in 3 cloves, so all I could taste was garlic. When I was breaking apart the head of garlic three stray cloves broke off and I just decided to use them all, because I like crazy amounts of garlic but not that much. I have hope for the next rendition and am contemplating buying another basil plant.

Look for my end of summer post on how to preserve pesto for use during the winter months, after the of season basil harvest.

Pesto is great on pasta, sandwiches, toast with cheese and a variety of other uses. Enjoy the summer!