August 13, 2014

That Time I Made Pepperoni Pesto Mini Pizzas...

You guessed right! It's 20sb Cooking Challenge time again!

Today's challenge:


Chopped Appetizer Round
1) Enlist a significant other/roommate/sibling/parents/grumpy cat lady from across the street to put together a “mystery basket” with four ingredients that you MUST use — if they want to shop all ingredients cannot exceed $20 TOTAL (or £10 or €15 depending on your country). They must include a protein and a fruit/veggie...

2) You are allowed to use any “stock” ingredients you have on hand– e.i. herbs, spices, flour, you get the point!
3) You are limited to 30 minutes of TOTAL preparation and plating time!
4) And you should enlist a couple people (see list above) to try what you made! (bonus points for posting comments made about the dish)

So here's the thing. I didn't have anyone to ask to put a mystery basket together for me so I had to cheat. I instead thought up an appetizer that used only four ingredients that I already had on hand. I also forgot if flour counted as an "on hand" ingredient and instead of checking the rules, chose to make it one of my four ingredients. Now that I see that it is, I would add some cheese as the fourth ingredient. I also did not have anyone except myself try them.

BUT. I stuck to the 30 minute time limit, and had they been purchased, they would have been within the $20 limit.

My entry in the contest:  
Pepperoni Pesto Mini Pizzas

Ingredients (serves one):
4 Roma tomato slices
3 Tbsp self-rising flour (this could also be made using salt and baking powder but I already have it)
2 Tbsp Greek yogurt
about 4 tsp pesto
4 Tbsp shredded mozzarella cheese if we don't count the flour

Directions:
1) Preheat (toaster) oven to 400ºF
1) Combine flour and yogurt in a small bowl. Add a bit more flour if mixture is too sticky.
2) Divide dough into three to four pieces and form into balls. Coat a flat surface and the balls with flour and flatten each ball with your fingers.
3) Put dough on a baking sheet and bake for 2 minutes.
4) Flip crusts, spread pesto, and add pepperoni, tomato, and cheese. If I'd used cheese, I probably would have done pesto-tomato-cheese-pepperoni, but without it, pesto-pepperoni-tomato made most sense to me.
5) Bake for 8-10 minutes and enjoy!

I have to be honest. I'm not sure how I felt about the pepperoni-pesto combo. It was a little strange but I definitely didn't HATE it. But I needed a protein and it was pretty much all I had on hand that wouldn't require defrosting and I felt that it would work well with not making the tomato slices fall off the pizzas.

And also since I was cheating, I wanted to try something that wasn't completely obvious to see how it would turn out. I would definitely make these again with out pepperoni and with some cheese!

3 comments :

  1. Pepperoni and pesto are both pretty strong flavors... that's brave to try them together! I've been wanting to do a "Chopped"-style challenge so I was excited when it was the theme this week but I was out of the house all weekend and didn't have the time to do it :(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, it was edible but not delicious. I would pick one or the other if I were to make this for real.

      Delete
  2. You have been NOMINATED. http://bit.ly/1qdQRC0 You don't have to do it if you don't want to.

    ReplyDelete