Pizza with homemade pesto, tomatoes, and goat cheese

When I found out that there was arugula in our CSA box, I was so excited to try making some arugula pesto!  Arugula is a leafy, green vegetable that has a pungent, peppery flavor, and it is often used in Italian cooking.  The arugula pesto can be tossed with pasta or used as a spread on a sandwich, but I decided to try it on a pizza, and it turned out to be SO delicious!

First of all, I made my own pizza crust for the first time using my new bread machine!  It was some of the best crust I have ever had with just the right amount of crispiness and softness (although I couldn't quite get it in a round shape!).  I spread the pesto on the crust as my sauce.  I generally like to have some tomato on my pizza, and since I wasn't using any tomato sauce, I decided to put tomatoes as a topping.  I used fresh tomato slices on one pizza, and I used sun-dried tomatoes on another.  I also added some goat cheese and shredded cheese, and it turned out to be one of the best pizzas I have ever tasted!  Even Keshav ate the bites without tomatoes on it :)

Recipe for Arugula Pesto

INGREDIENTS

1 cup arugula leaves

1 cup fresh basil leaves

2/3 cup walnuts

2 cloves garlic

10 green olives

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp red wine vinegar

1/8 tsp ground cumin

1 pinch cayenne pepper

1/4 cup grated parmesan/romano cheese

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Place all the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

To make the pizza, I spread the pesto on the rolled out dough and sprinkled it with shredded cheese.  Then I topped it with tomatoes and goat cheese and baked it in the oven at 300 degrees for about 20 minutes.  We ate it right out of the oven...MMMM!