Today is a gloomy day here in da ‘Burgh. It’s rainy and gray (par for the course sadly for this time of year). While I absolutely love this city, the weather is something less than to be desired. But I’m a ‘burgh girl and my heart belongs here – through rain and all. However there is an upside to the rain (if at all possible), there’s a great breeze outside. So I have the windows open and love the smell of rain. This motivated me to strip the beds and wash everything – comforters and all. So needless to say, even though it’s 8am I cannot wait to go to bed tonight. NOTHING beats crawling into bed with freshly washed sheets. *SNIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFFFFFFF* You know that smell and feeling! Now don’t be jealous.. just go wash yours!
With the weather being like this I tend to crave comfort, simple type meals – chili, roast, pasta or even pizza. Now since I made my standard pizza last night (yes, Friday night is typically pizza night in my house) I wanted a different type of pizza. If you’re a newbie to the site one thing you’ll come to realize VERY fast is that I LOOOOOOOOOOVE pizza! Like seriously, pizza is my absolute favorite food. Since I had made some of my Most Awesomest Crusty No Knead Bread EVER! the other day, I had the PERFECT bread on hand for this. I opted to go with a French Bread style pizza. Since again, last night was traditional pizza, I didn’t want red sauce again. This time I went for my favorite herbed oil blend. This is the same blend I use on my Tomato Caprese Focaccia Pizza. Haven’t tried that one yet? Oh honey, you soooooo need to make that! It’s pure heaven!
With the abundance of fresh vegetables readily available now, I had to go full on veggie! Plus I figured if I opted for veggies instead of pepperoni and sausage it would be more healthy which meant more could go in my tummy, right? LOL Yeah I know, horrible way of thinking.
As you can see, when these came out of the oven, the veggies had a roasted appearance. The flavors were so yummy that yours truly, who HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATES tomatoes in this form, loved it!
Now the vegetables you add can easily be changed – perhaps squash, eggplant, red onions, etc… I went with what I had on hand.
And since my pots of basil are growing like weeds I HAD to incorporate that into this. I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE fresh basil with fresh veggies.
As for the type of bread you use, you really need a thick crusty type of bread. I’m partial to my Most Awesomest Crusty No Knead Bread EVER! but you could cheat (I won’t judge you… much *wink*) and buy crusty Italian or French bread.
Happy Nomming!
PrintFrench Bread Garden Pizza with Herbed Oil
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Ingredients
French Bread
- 2 slices of thick crusty bread (I used 2 slices of the Rustic Artisan No Knead Bread I made the other day)
Toppings
- 1 large red tomato, sliced into 1/4” slices
- 1 large yellow tomato, sliced into 1/4” slices
- 1 cup sliced portabella mushrooms
- 1 cup thinly sliced zucchini (use a mandolin if possible)
- 1 6-7” round piece of fresh buffalo mozzarella, cut into1/4” slices
- 1 cup fresh basil leaves
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
Herbed oil
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 teaspoon oregano
- 1 teaspoon basil
- 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
Instructions
- Toast bread just until almost golden brown (I like my French Bread Pizza crunchy but if you don’t, you can skip this step).
- Drizzle the herbed oil over the bread, reserving 2 tablespoon
- Lay down the zucchini slices.
- Alternate placing down a tomato slice, slice of cheese, 1-2 basil leaves and repeat until you reach the end of the bread.
- Sprinkle sea salt and black pepper over top.
- Top with mushrooms.
- Drizzle remaining herbed oil over top.
- Bake at 375 for 10 minutes or until the cheese is all ooey gooey melted and the vegetables are just done. Don’t over bake as you don’t want the vegetables to get soggy.
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