Ham, Bacon, Provolone, Pesto Pizza

This pizza is a creation from my brain sort of emulating a pizza that I had recently at Bonfire Bistro. I was inspired after I ate one of the best pizzas I've ever had there however it ended up being not that similar. Basically I was inspired by the ham, arugula and the balsamic vinegar but other than that I ended up just making it up on my own. I love pesto and obviously bacon is a great addition to almost any pizza and when I went grocery shopping I spied some lovely provolone so that's kind of how this all came together in my head...

Single recipe of pizza dough
1-2 cups shredded cheese (basically however much you like, I probably used closer to one cup but I'm not exactly sure)
1/2 can crushed tomatoes (12-14 oz. can)
4 Tablespoons of basil pesto (I used the pesto you can get at Costco)
10-12 slices of ham (thinly sliced)
6 pieces of provolone
6-8 slices of bacon, cooked, crumbled
Fresh arugula
Balsamic vinegar

Like any pizza, I made the dough first and spread that out onto the pan. I used the Fleischmann's recipe again and this time did a single recipe and though it took a little longer to spread out it was worth it as it let the flavors of the toppings stand out more. I have done a double before which makes a bit of a thicker crust on the pan that I normally use however I think I'll make the effort from now on to just spread out the crust a little more thin as I prefer thin crust over thick crust pizza. Once the dough was on the pan I mixed the crushed tomatoes and pesto to make the sauce for the pizza. The sauce ended up looking kind of brown but it tasted wonderful. I spread that out on the dough and then started layering the rest of my ingredients. A little bit of cheese first on the bottom to help the ingredients stick to the pizza, then the ham, bacon, provolone and more cheese. This is how it looked before it went in the oven...

I baked this for about 15 minutes at 400 degrees until the edges of the crust were golden brown. Once it was out of the oven I put some arugula on top and drizzled balsamic vinegar over the whole thing.

I love the slightly bitter taste of arugula and the sharp taste of the balsamic vinegar with the saltiness of the cheese and bacon. Ugh, so good.

Also, these are some of my last pictures with my green plates as my husband bought me a beautiful white dinner set for my birthday! I'm so pumped and one of the first things I said was that they will look so nice on my blog! Stay tuned!

- A