greek pizza

those of you who really know me, know i'm a recipe girl. i'm a good cook because i take time to seek out good recipes. but last night, i made my own pizza and it was A. MAZ. ING.

i started with the crust recipe i love from my food processor cookbook. it couldn't be more simple: yeast, water, flour, oil and salt. i rolled it out and it just sort of came to me: what if i used garlic hummus rather than the traditional red sauce? then i remembered the beautiful kalamata olives from my trip to trader joe's last week. chopped those up. looked in the fridge and found some spinach and red onions and then some cheese to top it off. chicken would have been really good but i went vegetarian and it was perfect! i started thinking about things i love with hummus and pita - cucumbers are my favorite. i diced up fresh cucumbers and tossed them in a vinaigrette with more red onion and some grape tomatoes. fresh cracked pepper finished it off:

i can't even tell you how exciting this was for me. i just don't cook this way. and i realized why: i shop from a menu generated list. now, it's a loose menu but still. when i plan a trip to the grocery store, i write down dinner ideas and make a list of the ingredients i need for those meals. and i rarely stray from that list. not so last week! i spent an hour in trader joe's and just grabbed a few things that looked good to me (olives, hummus and spinach for example) and look at the end result - a tasty, ORIGINAL recipe made by me.

i'm so proud.