Easy Spinach Alfredo Pizza

I just finished up the first week of school, (My schedule is different because I work at a private school.) and felt celebratory. What better way to celebrate than to host a small dinner party? Homemade pizza is such an easy way to entertain, especially on a Friday night when you are exhausted from explaining to autistic fourth graders that stalls in the bathroom are one per customer. (Don't even ask. Seriously.) So pizza it is!

Because it's Friday, and going back to work after a summer at home sleeping in exhausts me, I'm taking a shortcut. While I can make a totally rocking pizza crust, I grabbed pre-made dough at Publix. We like the multigrain. It's tasty without being heavy. Most grocery stores have what I call "the pizza station", which will contain pre-made dough, crusts, jarred sauce and other things you can use to build a pizza at home. I also grabbed a bag of spinach and some shredded mozzarella and a wedge of asiago cheese.

 I pulled it as flat as I could to make the base. Can you see the sunflower seeds? That's multi-grain goodness right there.

I sweated some onions and garlic from our CSA in olive oil, then added the entire bag of baby spinach and a big pinch of salt. I turned down the heat and put the lid on to let the spinach cook down. When I make garlic spinach like this as a side dish, I usually use two bags of spinach, because spinach is delicious. The cooked spinach goes on top, with a generous layer of mozzarella cheese.

 
 The whole thing went into a 500 degree oven until the crust was crisp and the cheese was brown and bubbly. Then I added the grated asiago and popped it back in for a few minutes to let that melt. It was ready to serve after I sprinkled on some chopped parsley and savory from our CSA.

We ate it with heirloom tomatoes chopped and dressed with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and chopped savory and lemon verbena, all from our CSA. (Yeah, the CSA thing comes in handy.) Dessert was banana "ice cream" made by freezing over ripe bananas and pureeing them in my food processor until it had the consistency of soft serve. We topped that with nutella. We had a nice bottle of wine and some nice craft beers the staff at Ale Yeah in Roswell helped us pick out.

So what was the verdict? Well, everything but one slice of pizza was eaten. So if you're looking for a fun, casual dinner party after week at work, make a pizza!

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