All dressed up and ready for dinner.

Really, I shouldn’t dis this pizza by calling it “cheater”…it’s actually delicious pizza. It’s my fall back when I’ve been working all day and it’s really too late to make dinner. I call it cheating because, I confess it, I keep some whole wheat pre-made (cheater) pizza crust in my fridge. I know, home made is so much better, but when it’s 8 p.m. on a weeknight after I’ve been working all day, and I don’t already have some crust of my own made, the last thing I want to do is make pizza dough. It’s so easy to just pull out some cheater crust, place it on my peel, throw on some toppings, slide it onto my pizza stone, and in 12 minutes I’ve got a really tasty, crispy pizza, lickety-split!

My favorite quick combo is both pizza and salad in one dish and the recipe for Pizza with Prosciutto and Arugula is below and here.

So I say unto you…if you’ve got the time, make your own crust and try out this recipe. If you’re like I am most of the time, “cheat” and try out this recipe. I really think you’ll like it a lot!

Ingredients:
1-14 inch pizza crust, pre-made
3 Tablespoons of your favorite jarred pasta sauce or pizza sauce
4 very thin slices of Prosciutto de Parma
1 medium tomato, thinly sliced and dried on paper towels
2 Tablespoons fresh slivered basil leaves
4 ounces buffalo mozzarella, cut into small pieces
2 cups fresh baby arugula
Olive Oil
Pizza stone, pizza peel and corn meal

Preheat your oven to 475 degrees. Sprinkle a tiny bit of cornmeal on the peel, then place your crust on top of that. Drizzle about 1/2 tsp of olive oil on the crust and rub it all over with your hands to make the crust brown well. Put the marinara or pizza sauce on the crust and evenly distribute, leaving about 1/2 inch from the edge untouched. Place your prosciutto evenly around the crust, then layer the tomatoes, the basil leaves and lastly the cheese, evenly. Sprinkle a tiny bit of cornmeal onto the hot pizza stone in the oven, and use the peel to transfer the pizza to the stone. Cook for 12 minutes or until the cheese is golden brown and the edges of the crust are crispy. Remove from the oven with the peel, and transfer the cooked pizza to a cutting board. Distribute the arugula evenly over the pizza and drizzle a tiny bit of olive oil to finish it. Cut into 6 slices and serve.

Before the oven.

Out of the oven.