Beef and Spinach Pizza...

After a fairly hectic week, it was nice to slow down into comfort with our weekly Friday Night Pizza! We went the hearty route this time with a Beef and Spinach Pizza.

While we were waiting for our favorite whole-wheat pizza dough to do its thing, we tossed a pound of lean ground sirloin into a skillet and let it begin to brown. Sliced onions are stirred in, along with a couple cloves of minced garlic, basil and a couple dribbles from our jar of cayenne pepper sauce. When the onions had softened enough, shredded leaves of spinach and a healthy dose of marinara were added and sloshed around the skillet until the spinach began to wilt.

As the beefy mixture cooled off, I pushed and prodded the puffy pizza dough into a rough circle, scooted it over to the pizza peel and made a lip to hold in the filling by crimping a small portion around the outer edge. The generous topping is spooned on top of the dough, followed by a shower of shredded mozzarella cheese and creamy crumbles of goat cheese. The original recipe did call for salty feta, which apparently disappeared from the refrigerator (hmm!)... so goat cheese it was!

Juicy, meaty and very filling, this knife and fork pizza definitively hit the spot tonight. Knife and fork you say? For pizza? Well, that topping is quite heavy and it will get pretty messy if you try to pick up a slice (and yeah, Jeff's shirt is currently soaking in detergent as we speak...). With all the sauce used, the crust didn't get as cracker-like crisp as we usually prefer, but we both thought the softness suited this type of pizza. If you would like a crispier crust though, I would suggest you give the stretched out dough a quick stint in the oven before adding the saucy topping. Jeff was a little wary of the goat cheese, but he was glad (and was I) we went ahead with it as the added tang seemed to marry well with this snazzy pizza.

Recipes
Beef and Spinach Pizza