Spinach, Bacon, Hummus Pizza

How do you take a good vegetarian recipe and make it better? Add bacon, of course! Okay, I'm kidding...but this is exactly what I did to this pizza. I started cooking this dinner without really having a solid plan as to what I was doing. I was winging it. Bacon just felt 'right', so I cooked some up and added it willy-nilly to the toppings. You could easily omit the bacon to turn it back into a vegetarian meal. We are just bacon fanatics at my house. Anyway, I did a few things differently from my normal pizza routine, namely using a pizza stone. I always forget that I actually own a pizza stone, so it never gets used. I just happened to find it in my cupboard, so I busted it out for this recipe...it was a total fluke. I'm surprised at how much it did make a difference; the crust was much more crisp with the stone. This was a great variation on pizza and my family gobbled it up. Ah, I love it when a last minute decision works out for the best!


Spinach,Bacon,Hummus Pizza

Ingredients:
pizza stone, preheated
1-2 T cornmeal
1 round of whole wheat pizza dough, store bought or homemade
1 small jar of sun dried tomatoes, diced, drained and rinsed of oil (save oil separately)
2 T sun dried tomato oil (see above)
1 (6 oz.) container of your favorite hummus
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
2 medium cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 bag of washed fresh spinach leaves
salt and pepper to taste
couple splashes of lemon juice
2 cups of mozzarella cheese, shredded
5 pieces of bacon, cooked and diced

Directions:
Preheat oven, with pizza stone, to 450 degrees. In a large skillet, cook bacon until crisp, dice, and set aside. Wipe skillet out with paper towels for reuse.

In the same skillet, add sun dried tomato oil and saute onions and garlic until onions are translucent and garlic is fragrant. Add sun dried tomatoes cook for another minute or so. Add spinach and cook until wilted. Add salt, pepper, and a couple splashes of lemon juice to taste. Set aside.

Once pizza stone is preheated, remove from oven carefully (use oven mitts...don't burn yourself!). Sprinkle corn meal onto pizza stone. Roll out dough in the shape of your stone and place carefully onto the round. Spoon a layer of hummus onto the dough, as you would pizza sauce. Add spinach mixture in a layer over the hummus. Sprinkle cooked bacon on top. Add shredded mozzarella cheese as final topping. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until crust is cooked and cheese is melted and starting to get brown and bubbly (sometimes I turn on the broiler at the end of cooking for a minute or so to give the cheese an extra little bit of cook time.) Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes before cutting into wedges. Serve and enjoy!