Mexican Black Bean and Spinach Pizza...

Does anyone else do, or have you started, your own Friday Night Pizza yet? I'm glad we began doing this a few months ago... while it helps to know what you are going to have at the beginning of each weekend, it is fun to pick and choose what topping we are going to do! For this week's pizza, we decided this Mexican Black Bean and Spinach Pizza was going to be on tap.

I hope you've given the whole-wheat pizza dough we have been using a try - it is so simple and such a pleasant dough to work with. We buzzed it together again tonight - when it had rested and rose a bit, I easily stretched it out to a rough circle to start this pizza. Because we wanted the crust to be on the crisper side, we gave it a pre-bake before topping.

Rather than a tomato-y sauce, we spread our crust with a mixture of coarsely mashed black beans, onions, garlic, cumin and chili powder. I softened the onions first since Jeff isn't a fan of them crunchy, but you could skip that step if their texture doesn't matter to you. On top of that went spoonfuls of salsa (extra hot for us!), followed by spinach and chopped fresh cilantro. A drizzle of cayenne pepper sauce and a blend of cheeses were scattered on top before the crust was slid back onto the stone to finish cooking through.

This hefty pizza was decidedly filling, thanks to the beans and spinach - pre-baking the thin crust ensured the bottom would hold up against the toppings, but if you would like a bit more chew, up the dough recipe to the full pound version. I would definitely suggest using a very flavorful salsa that is at least around medium heat - due to the beans and spinach, anything less and I'm afraid the salsa layer would just fade away!

Recipes
Mexican Black Bean and Spinach Pizza