Pizza with Arugula

I love gourmet pizza. One of my favorite spots to eat is Fritti and I was inspired by their speck and arugula pizza. Although I don't have a brick oven so my crust is not as amazing, I can get the sense of it with this weeknight substitute. Do you know how healthy arugula is? It's right up there with spinach - vitamins A, C, & K as well as calcium! I buy pizza dough from Trader Joe's. Publix also sells pizza dough in the bakery. My friend, Bill, in Cashiers buys his dough frozen from Ingles. The other key is to not use too much sauce. I use the Gia Russa (see earlier post) tomato & basil sauce. Use a red pasta sauce, not thick jarred pizza sauce and it can't be sweet! The prosciutto and arugula go on after it comes out of the oven. On this one I only put the arugula on half because Caterina likes her salad on the side :-).

Prosciutto & Arugula Pizza
pizza stone or perforated pizza pan
pizza dough
1/2 cup Gia Russa tomato & basil sauce
8 oz fresh mozzarella - shrink wrapped kind
3 - 4 thin slices of prosciutto
arugula
olive oil
parmesan cheese
salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 425 with a pizza stone inside if you have one. This pizza pan has little holes in the bottom which also creates a crisp crust. I think the stone is better though. Thinly slice the mozzarella. If you have the kind that is packed in water, place it on paper towels to dry out. The shrink wrapped kind is dryer. Put a generous amount of flour on the counter. My dough was very sticky and required a lot of flour so it didn't stick. Be sure to flour both sides. I use my hands to stretch the dough into a circle. I even hold it up by the edge to stretch it thin as well. To transfer the pizza dough to the hot stone or pizza pan, fold the dough in half then half again to form triangle. Put it on the stone and open it up! Top with 1/2 cup of sauce and the mozzarella. Place it in the oven and cook for about 10 minutes or until the crust & cheese are browned. While it's cooking shred the prosciutto. Top the hot pizza with the prosciutto, arugula, a drizzle of olive oil, large grated parm, and lightly salt & pepper.

Enjoy!