FRENCH BREAD PIZZA: TWO WAYS

Hey there, I made you pizza.

It’s not just any pizza, it’s got a french bread base, there’s no yeasty pizza crust here. This is the stuff you had as a kid, but better. Also this is way easier because there’s no waiting for dough to rise and no rolling and that means the time to get the carbs into mah face is far less.

Someone might be against this french bread pizza idea because it makes you lose some foodie cred, but here’s an inside tip: a) foodie cred isn’t real and b) the people that believe in it are assholes. Do your own thang.

You’re probably looking at that picture and going, spinach artichoke?! And I’m all like, yeah. Joy made a spinach artichoke dip grilled cheese sandwich, and I took it and turned it into a french bread pizza/open face spinach artichoke dip sandwich. Let’s use our imaginations.

The other pizza is just your classic BBQ, just all pretty womaned. There’s a donut shop that sells a BBQ pizza with cilantro on it and the first time I had it my mind was blown and I was curious as to why we never had it on our own BBQ pizza before. We haven’t had it without since. There’s also sliced red onions, sesame seeds that add a nice slight crunch and flavor and my other all time favorite BBQ pizza topping: fresh corn. Straight off the cob, onto the pizza, no other way. It’s one of my favorite things about having summer corn available in the store. There’s something about the bursts of sweet that pair so amazing with the tangy spicy BBQ. Yesterday I read something saying I should never put corn on my pizza but guess what? I’m doing my own thang. Voom voom shebang.

French bread pizza is just downright fabulous, and super easy for a weeknight meal. It let’s more people customize whatever they want on their pizza. This is crowd food. Party food. Par-tay Pi-zza.

French Bread Pizzas

loosely adapted from Joy and Tracy

Basically for french bread pizzas, we’re going to use our broilers. The bread gets toasted for about a min, then you pile on the sauce and toppings then under the broiler for a couple more min. Keep your eyes on it though! The broiler is like the ocean, never turn your back to it. Now you’ve got french bread pizza. Everything can go on a big foil lined baking sheet so you can cook several at once, just make sure you rotate it once during the broiling so it’s not half burned half not toasted at all.

p.s. I just used some good bulk sandwich rolls from the bakery at my grocery store.

For the spinach artichoke pizza/open faced sandwich:

From Joy the Baker

splash of olive oil

1 clove garlic, minced

3 c (or 3 big handfuls) baby spinach

1/2 c mozzarella cheese

2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup coarsely chopped canned artichoke hearts, drained

1 heaping tablespoon sour cream

1/2 to 1 teaspoon sriracha

large pinch of salt

Heat oil in a skillet, add garlic and saute for about 30 sec, toss in the spinach and saute until wilted. This only takes a couple min. Remove spinach and garlic from pan and set in a small bowl to cool for a couple minutes.

Add the rest of the ingredients and stir to combine. Now we pile it on the toasty bread and broil. Boom. This amount tops about 3 halves of the sandwich rolls. Or two if you’re feeling extra good. It can easily be doubled.

BBQ Pizza:

Pile onto the toasty bread:

BBQ sauce

mozzarella cheese

fresh corn

sesame seeds

red onions

chicken if you have it

now broil til it’s toasty

top it with some cilantro.

There’s a slight asian sub flair with the sesame seeds and cilantro and I’m kind of in live with it.