Chicken Pesto Pizza

Happy Sunday! I am quickly learning there are no weekends or vacation days when you work for yourself. Which isn’t really that different than working in the corporate world, you just get to do it on your own schedule and in your pajamas.

The theme for this week is simple, healthy foods. Friday night we did a massive grocery haul at Market Basket. It was awesome to have that big task checked off before the weekend even began.

I have had a craving for homemade pizza for awhile but have had no desire to mess with dough. I just don’t have it in me to have another pizza disaster.

So I went the very easy route, Boboli whole wheat pizza crust for our lunch pizza yesterday.

You know what? I really liked it. Like I said, I am just in the mood for simple food these days. I don’t care that it wasn’t a hand-tossed dough or made in a pizza oven or on a special stone.

Instead of a red sauce, I decided to use my winter pesto, also known as “poor girl pesto” as the base. Winter pesto because it utilizes spinach instead of basil, and “poor girl pesto” because it uses walnuts, which are cheaper than pine nuts, and there is no parmesan cheese. To tell the truth, I love it just as much as traditional pesto.

Start by adding a bunch of baby spinach leaves to the processer.

Top with a handful of walnuts, 4-6 cloves of garlic, a grind of sea salt, and enough oil to cover the top. Because my pizza was cheese-less, I added a little extra oil to my pesto to make sure it was not a dry sauce.

Voila! I always make enough pesto so that I can eat a spoonful or two right out of the bowl. It’s garlicky goodness never fails.

Next up, I chopped a head of broccoli into florets. We certainly got our greens in at lunch!

I didn’t get a photo of the process, but I smothered the Boboli pizza crust in pesto and a little basil oil, topped it with broccoli, and popped it into the oven at 420 degrees for about 10 minutes.

While the pizza was baking, I quickly stir fried bits of chicken breast with some olive oil and garlic.

When the pizza came out of the oven, the chicken was perfectly cooked and ready to join the rest of the ingredients.

Yum!

This was an awesome lunch that didn’t take more than 20 minutes to make. In the middle of a busy weekend, it was nice to stop for a healthy meal with all sorts of flavors.

This would definitely be something you could easily wrap up in foil and bring into the office for a lunch you would look forward to.

I am going to dinner at Beacon Hill Bistro tonight for a friend’s birthday. Do you have any fun Sunday plans? Do you have tomorrow off?