Meg's Meal Planning

homemade pizza

Homemade Pesto Pizza with Chicken Sausage

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Homemade pizza with a homemade pesto sauce is an easy weeknight dinner that the whole family will enjoy!


There is not much that makes me happier than a warm, sunny Friday evening in the summer. The thought of getting out of work, picking up a 6 pack or bottle of wine and cooking a nice dinner is what gets me through the day! If the humidity isn’t bad, which it has been recently in Connecticut unfortunately, you’ve hit the jackpot! And there is not a more laid back dinner to make on a Friday than homemade pizza!

The best part about homemade pizza is it’s a great way to use some left overs in your fridge and make room for next week’s groceries. For this pizza, I used a veggie pesto sauce which was originally planned for my son’s pasta, but I forgot about it! Any kind of pesto sauce will do – homemade, store bought, veggie, or traditional basil.


Veggie Pesto Sauce

To make the veggie pesto sauce, I added to a food processor four large kale leaves, one cup of cut zucchini, a handful of raw baby carrots, and shredded Parmesan cheese. Blend in the food processor and  drizzle in olive oil until the desired consistency is reached.

When making homemade pizza, heating your pizza stone is a HUGE must. The longer you heat it, the more crispy and crunchy your pizza dough will be.  We usually heat ours in a 500 degree F oven for 20-30 minutes. The prep time for the pizza includes heating the pizza stone.

While the stone is heating, I will roll my dough out either on a clean counter or a cookie sheet in order to prevent burning myself.

Pesto Pizza with Chicken Sausage
 
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Serves: 2
Ingredients
  • Pizza dough
  • Pesto sauce - see above for veggie pesto sauce recipe
  • Two precooked chicken sausage links, sliced
  • ¼ cup sun dried tomatoes
  • Handful fresh basil
  • Shredded mozzarella cheese
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees and heat pizza stone for 20-30 minutes.
  2. Remove pizza stone from oven and wipe down with olive oil.
  3. Carefully stretch pizza dough out on pizza stone and cover with pesto sauce.
  4. Sprinkle cheese on, then add chicken sausage, sundried tomatoes, and basil.
  5. Bake at 450 F for 15 minutes.

 

Week of July 19th 

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What an adventurous week for megsmealplanning! I only followed 1 recipe all week! Four of the meals were created by me! Also new this week, I’m going to start including my shopping lists so you can print them out to make it even easier for you at home to try these recipes!

The shopping list will be located at the end of every weekly meal post. I’ll include every item needed for each recipe. Don’t freak if it looks like a lot of items; once you start building your pantry, you’ll find you will already have a bunch of these items. For more tips on building a pantry, click on my meal planning tips! Remember to buy things when they’re on sale. For example, I only buy pizza dough when it goes on sale for 10/$10, I’ll buy 2-3 and freeze them until needed.

Monday– Homemade pizza! Margherita and pesto pizza with spicy chicken sausage. My sister came over for dinner because she wants to learn how to cook.  For the next few weeks I’m going to be featuring a mini-series called “Cooking with Hope” featuring meals my sister and I cook together. To read more about this meal, click here!

Tuesday– Chicken legs with sweet potato and pineapple. I found this recipe in the cook book One pan, Two Plates, by Carla Snyder.

Pan-Roasted Chicken with Thyme, Sweet Potatoes, and Pineapple

Ingredients

  • 2 tsp minced fresh parsley
  • 1 tsp minced fresh thyme
  • 1 garlic glove, minced
  • 1 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 2 whole chicken leg quarters or drumsticks
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 shallot, chopped
  • 2 small or 1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes
  • 1 cup diced fresh or canned pineapple
  • 1/2 cup chicken broth

Steps

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
  2. Combine 1 tsp of the parsley, all the thyme, garlic, and butter in a small bowl and mash it all together. Working with one chicken piece at a time, gently slide your fingers under the skin to separate it from the meat and push half of the herb butter under the skin, pressing it evenly over the surface of the meat. Sprinkle the chicken all over with salt and pepper.
  3. Heat a 12 inch ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat and add olive oil. Add the chicken, skin side down, and brown it on the first side, without moving it. Turn and brown the other side. Transfer to plate. (It won’t be fully cooked.)
  4. Add the shallot, sweet potatoes, 1/2 tsp of salt and a few grinds of pepper to the oil in the hot pan and saute until the vegetables begin to soften. Add the pineapple and chicken broth and bring to a simmer. Add the chicken and any juices, layering the chicken pieces on top of the potatoes. Transfer to the oven and roast until the chicken is cooked through and potatoes are tender, about 35 minutes. *Note if not using leg quarters, the chicken will cook faster, use a meat thermometer and insert into the chicken until it reads 165 degrees).
  5. Divide the chicken and potatoes between two plates and top with remaining parsley.

Wednesday– Cheeseburgers with grilled squash and zucchini and baked beans. This is as easy as they come. Slice the veggies, season with salt, pepper, and olive oil and cook at the same time with the burgers.

Thursday– Grilled chicken salad with roasted corn, black beans, scallions, and feta cheese with a honey lime vinaigrette.  I’m very happy with this salad because I didn’t follow a recipe for the salad or the dressing!

Grilled chicken salad with black beans and roasted corn

  • Servings: 2
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Ingredients

  • 1 bag of spinach
  • 2 pieces of skinless, boneless chicken breast, grilled and sliced
  • 1/2 cup black beans, drained and rinsed
  • 1/2 cup ofcorn
  • 3-4 scallions, finely chopped
  • 2 tablespoons feta cheese
  • Salt and pepper

Steps

  1. In large bowl add spinach, chicken, black beans, scallions, and feta cheese
  2. Heat small frying pan over medium heat, add corn, salt, and pepper and cook 3-4 minutes or until corn starts turning brown. Add to spinach.

Honey lime vinaigrette

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 1/4 cup lime juice
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1 tbsp orange juice
  • 2 teaspoon honey
  • Salt to taste

Steps

  1. Mix all ingredients together and pour over salad.  This will make more than enough, you can store the rest in the fridge and use on another day!

Friday– Spaghetti with pesto, artichokes, and sun dried tomatoes. Once again I didn’t follow a recipe! This was a good week for that! I had the pesto I made in advance, click here for the recipe.  Cooked pasta according to package directions, added artichokes and sun dried tomatoes.

Shopping List

  • Print
  • Two store bought pizza doughs
  • Pizza sauce
  • Fresh basil
  • Mozzarella cheese
  • Pesto
  • Spicy chicken sausage
  • Artichokes
  • Sun dried tomatoes
  • Shredded mozzarella cheese
  • 2 whole chicken leg quarters or 4 drumsticks
  • Sweet potato
  • 1 fresh pineapple or canned pineapple
  • Hamburger patties
  • Hamburger buns
  • Zucchini
  • Squash
  • 2 Chicken breasts
  • Spinach
  • Feta cheese
  • Scallions

Please note, I didn’t include the following items because they are what I consider as pantry items aka I always have them in stock and buy when they go on sale

  • Parsley- can use dried
  • Thyme- can use dried
  • Salt and pepper
  • Olive oil
  • Garlic
  • Shallots
  • Butter
  • Baked beans
  • Corn
  • Black beans
  • Lime juice
  • Orange juice
  • Honey
  • Spaghetti