Shrimp Pesto Pizza

We all have our “Go To” meals when we want something for dinner that is fast, easy and delicious. I have a plethora of these, but really, it’s pretty much narrowed down to two different meals. One of those is called Tuna Gemelli, but I never make it with gemelli pasta because it’s rather difficult to find in my white trash supermarket, but I’ll talk about that in another post. And the other is a pizza I started making 12 years ago I call Shrimp Pesto Pizza.

This pizza is based on some of my favorite things: shrimp, pesto and pizza. The name makes a lot of sense now, doesn’t it? (Smiles to self, resting assured of smartass wit.) I don’t know what it is about this particular pizza that I find so taste-bud-tantalizing, but perhaps after you try it yourself, you’ll see why.

Now, I used to buy pizza crusts at the store, and have made this recipe with just about every crust available, but lately I’ve been making my own. The pizza is good on a regular crust, but excels at being a thin crust so as to not dilute the delicate flavors that go into it. Then one day I decided to try it with a whole wheat crust, and proceeded to make the dough and let it rise, before stretching and patting it into place on our pizza stone from Pampered Chef, which has now taken on the coveted black-brown patina, and par bake it with a little olive oil misted over it, and found this to be the perfect companion. But since this post is about the pizza, not the crust, I’ll get straight to that. What? You want my Whole Wheat Pizza Crust recipe too? Later, my friends, later.

Ingredients

par-baked pizza crust

4-8 tablespoons pesto or garlic pesto sauce

2 handfuls baby spinach, microwaved between 2 paper towels for 30 seconds

2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese

½ lb shrimp, small to medium sized, with excess water squeezed out

½ can black olives, roughly chopped

¼ cup parmesan cheese

black pepper

Preheat the oven according to your pizza crust’s package directions, or 475ºF for homemade. Spread the pesto over the crust. Put the wilted spinach over that in an even single layer. Cover with Monterey Jack cheese to within an inch of the edge of the crust. Place the shrimp evenly over the crust to ensure each slice will have lots of delicious pink crescents to devour. Sprinkle the roughly chopped olives and parmesan cheese on top and don’t forget to crack some black pepper over that. If you like garlic (like me) you can sprinkle some garlic powder over the whole thing before you bake it. Is everything ready? Excellent. Now put it in the oven for 8-10 minutes, or until the cheese gets bubbly and starts to brown. When this happens, remove it from the oven and allow it to rest on the stone for about 5 minutes to give the cheese a chance to set up, otherwise when you pull your pizza slices off, you’ll leave half the cheese on the pizza stone, and really, you don’t need to feed it. Cut into 6-8 slices and enjoy!

Okay, so what can you do if you do not have a pizza stone? Well, you can just bake directly on the oven rack, use a rimless cookie sheet, or an upside down jelly roll pan. Or, go out and get one, preferably at a friend of a friend of a friend’s Pampered Chef party.

I hope you enjoy making this pizza for your family, and I promise to post the Tuna Gemelli recipe, as well as my whole wheat pizza dough recipe soon!