Ham and Pineapple Pizza... plus a surprise build up of snow!

Hmm... what happened to "a slim chance of flurries?" Look what we woke up to!

So, we thought Gus wouldn't like being a snow pup from his reaction to the very light dusting we had last time, but we were so wrong! He absolutely loved pouncing around in this mess. I even got a video of it, so we'll try and get that together in a couple days so you can see too! He could barely contain himself... look how excited he is!

For this week's Friday Night Pizza, I asked Jeff while we were eating the pizza last week what kind he thought would be good next time. He perked up and said let's go tropical with pineapple! This time it was my turn to give the "umm... do we have too?" look. Pineapple, ham and cheese never really sounded like a killer combination to me, but what did I have to loose?

This Ham and Pineapple Pizza is not too involved, but I didn't want to venture too far before finding out if I would even enjoy the combination. I used the same whole-wheat pizza dough as normal, but once I got it all stretched out, I gave it a quick bake since the original recipe called for using those pre-baked pizza shells.

Once the crust began to set up, we slid it from the stone, flipped it over and set it on cutting board so what was the bottom becomes the top. Any sauce will do, but we smeared a good half cup of that homemade spicy pizza sauce both of us quite enjoy. Before we added the other toppings, I sprinkled on just about half of the shredded cheese. Next came thin strips of cooked ham and chunky bits of fresh, sweet pineapple. I didn't want to deal with a bunch of pineapple tonight, so I just grabbed a few hunks from the salad bar at the market - you could also use canned, but be sure to drain it well. The rest of the mozzarella is scattered on top, followed by crushed red pepper flakes to balance the sweetness with some heat.

I used the twelve-ounce version of the dough as we were looking for a thin, crisp crust, but if you wanted something a bit more chewy and substantial, go ahead and use a pound worth of dough. Now, seriously... why have I been so silly to think this wouldn't taste good? Geez... maybe I'm crazy, but I think I've really been missing out! I thought the salty, savory nature of the ham would clash with the golden diced pineapple, but who knew it would work so well? Not me, apparently. While the pizza sauce was good, I think I'd love to try another version of this with barbecue sauce instead! With all that snow outside, it was sure nice to warm up inside with this tropical dinner - I even tried to close my eyes and feel like I was in Hawaii. Didn't work, but maybe I'll be dreaming about it tonight instead!

Recipes

Ham and Pineapple Pizza