Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. For all that celebrate, I wish you a wonderful Lenten season. On Fridays during Lent, and on Ash Wednesday, we don’t eat meat, which means I need to come up with recipes that are vegetarian for those Fridays, and, of course, today. Dennis and I would be heading to church for our 7:00 p.m. Ash Wednesday service tonight, so I decided I’d make something easy for dinner. I settled on homemade pizza.

I bought a package of fresh pizza dough at Trader Joe’s this afternoon and a 28 ounce can of whole plum tomatoes, as well as a container of burrata cheese and a package of fresh basil. Oh my … this was such a good pizza!

I started by letting my dough rise on a bread board, dusted with a bit of flour, for 20 minutes, as per package instructions. Once the dough was ready, I formed it onto a pizza pan and brushed a tablespoon of olive oil on it. I also sprinkled a tablespoon of grated parmesan cheese and a pinch of kosher salt onto the crust. I like to bake my crust in the oven (preheated to 425 degrees) for about 8 minutes before adding any toppings. This seems to ensure that my crust is just crispy enough and not too soft.

Once the crust had baked in the oven for 8 minutes, I pulled it out and added the whole plum tomatoes. I squeezed the juice out of them before placing them on the crust. I drained the tomatoes into a strainer in the sink and I actually crushed them in my hand in the sink, otherwise you could end up with fresh tomato juice flying everywhere. I learned this the hard way :). For me, 3/4 of the can of tomatoes was the right amount. Feel free to use as much or as little as you’d like. I sprinkled a bit of sea salt onto the tomatoes at this point because I always buy my tomatoes in the can unsalted.

I then placed the pizza back into the oven for 10 minutes. Once the 10 minutes were up, I pulled the pizza from the oven and squeezed fresh burrata cheese over the entire pizza and added fresh basil that I cut into large pieces by hand.

This pizza was perfect for our Ash Wednesday dinner! It was light and it was satisfying. I know Dennis is looking forward to leftovers for lunch tomorrow!

Ingredients

1 fresh pizza dough

1/8 cup flour

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 tablespoon grated parmesan cheese

pinch of kosher salt

pinch of sea salt

28 ounce can of whole plum tomatoes, drained and crushed by hand

1 16 ounce container of burrata cheese

handful of basil leaves

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Sprinkle flour on a cutting board. Pat the flour around the dough so it doesn’t stick and let it rise for 20 minutes.
3. Form dough onto a pizza pan and brush with olive oil. Sprinkle with kosher salt.
4. Bake for 8 minutes.
5. Remove from oven, top with tomatoes and sprinkle with a pinch of sea salt.
6. Return to oven for 10 minutes.
7. Remove from oven and top with fresh burrata cheese and fresh basil.

Enjoy!

Until next time, Kris