Sausage and Ricotta White Pizza

Howdy! Bonjour! Hola! Guten Tag! Konnichiwa!

It's been awhile, hasn't it? I'm not going to bore you with my standard excuse of how busy I've been, and just get to the cookin'...

I have some hit or miss stuff lately in my kitchen, and I'm finally excited to have a couple new, blog-worthy recipes. As per usual, I had to scroll back in my camera to see what I've been up to recipe-wise and this was one that jumped out at me.

This recipe is actually a mistake that turned out to be tasty. I originally set out to make The Pioneer Woman's Easy Calzone recipe, but botched the frozen rolls. I accidentally bought pre-cooked heat and serve frozen rolls, and not the actual frozen dinner rolls as recommended in the original recipe. Oops! When I realized I needed to scrap my rolls, I shifted gears and made whole wheat pizza dough and just put this filling on as a white pizza topping. I ended up being delicious and a happy mistake that I would purposefully do again.

Sausage and Ricotta White Pizza
Adapted From: Food Network.com via The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond 2012

Ingredients:
1 homemade or store-bought whole wheat pizza dough
1/2 cup of olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 whole medium onion, diced
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 pound breakfast or Italian sausage
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
15 ounces whole milk ricotta
2 whole egg
2 cups grated mozzarella, divided
1/2 cup grated Parmesan, divided
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1/2 teaspoon salt
Black pepper
homemade or store-bought marinara sauce for dipping

Directions:
Prepare pizza dough according to recipe or package directions. Brush pizza dough with the olive oil (you may not need all of it) to coat evenly. Set aside. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions and allow to cook for a couple of minutes. Add garlic and cook for an additional minute. Add the sausage and cook until brown, crumbling the sausage as you stir. Add the Italian seasoning and red pepper flakes. Remove from the skillet and allow to cool on a plate.

In a separate bowl, combine the ricotta, 1 cup of the mozzarella, 1/4 cup of the Parmesan, salt, some pepper, parsley and 2 eggs.

When the sausage is cool, stir it into the cheese mixture and set aside.

Top rolled pizza dough with cheese sausage mixture and sprinkle the top with the remaining mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until cheese is browned and bubbly and dough is cooked. Let cool for 5-10 minutes. Sprinkle with a final dusting of Parmesan cheese and parsley as garnish. Serve with small bowls of marinara sauce for dipping.