Garlic Scape Pesto Cheesy Flatbread Pizza (Pizza Night!)

Mild garlic flavor from the garlic scape pesto, plus plenty of shredded cheeses, makes a Cheesy Garlic Scape Flatbread--a seasonal treat that can be enjoyed year round thanks to your freezer.

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I want to talk about making pizzas at home, and share a way you can keep it innovative.

Having a stash of pizza topping options in the fridge and freezer keeps our weekly pizza nights interesting.  It's super simple to throw some leftover protein (chicken, ham, ground beef--links to some of my pizza posts) onto a meat-containing pizza.

It's a breeze to add fresh vegetables (peppers, spinach, or mushrooms--more links to suggested recipes) and/or preserved vegetables for a vegetarian pizza.

I store a lot of pizza cheese in the freezer [NOT always a good idea to use in a pizza], have a vat of feta standing by, and sometimes you don't even need cheese [this would be the place where I'd link to the Beef and Broccoli Pizza if it had been posted].

It takes some time to build up that pizza topping stash, but it's worth it.  Preparing a batch as each vegetable hits peak season means that I'm not constantly slaving away in the kitchen [it only seems like that in August-September with the tomato canning, though, like childbirth, I'd do it again] yet I get to enjoy a wide variety of homemade, locally grown sauces on our pizzas throughout the year.

I don't want to tell you what to do want to subliminally brainwash you to consider trying to put up one pizza topping in your freezer this summer. Here's some suggestions, in order of when they're ripe and ready throughout the season--all of these store well in the freezer.

• Will it be Garlic Scape Pesto? (link to my recipe)
• How about Roasted Garlic? (link to my recipe)
• Maybe some jars of Fresh Tomato Pesto? (link to my recipe)
• Perhaps plain ol' ordinary Pesto? (link to my recipe)

Think about it and get back to me.  In the meantime, here's one way you could use your bounty: pizza.

I'm not sure if regular readers noticed, but it's turning into Garlic Scape Week around here. I'm preparing a Garlic Scape Recipe Round Up for my next post and wanted to include some of the ways I feed my family garlic scapes from our garden and the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share.  [In order to include my recipes in the round up, I kinda needed to post them first.]

I started off by sharing how I put up my scapes in the form of pesto, combined with a variety of leaves (I'm partial to parsley and basil) as well as an assortment of nuts (I'm partial to pistachio and sunflower seeds).  I use this pesto in all sorts of things, from Hummus to Shrimp Scampi and now, because it's a Friday and my family likes our Friday Night Pizza Nights, on a pizza.

I made two pizzas using this Garlic Scape and Pistachio pesto:  a plain cheese one and a more involved Sun-dried Tomato, Artichoke, and Olive with Fresh Mozzarella pie.  Since I was making a number of pizzas, I told the kids to go ahead and eat the cheese one while it was hot.  By the time I joined them they'd nearly demolished it and my son told me "this tastes just like cheesy garlic flatbread". Well, now I don't have to come up with a creative title--thanks!

For more recipes using garlic scapes, please see my Garlic and Garlic Scapes Recipes Collection. It's part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, the garden, the neighbor's garden, and great deals on ugly produce at the grocery store.

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For general hints, tips, and photo collages please check out my Pizza Primer post, a brain dump of all things related to making pizza in my home kitchen.

NOTE: This recipe is not gluten free as written, because I used pizza dough containing gluten. To adapt this recipe for a gluten free diet please substitute the gluten free pizza dough of your choice.
Check labels to confirm that your other ingredients are also gluten free. Good sources for determining gluten free products can be found here:
http://knowgluten.me/2012/03/31/other-names-for-gluten/
http://glutenfreedoctor.com/gluten-free/
http://www.celiac.com/categories/Safe-Gluten%252dFree-Food-List-%7B47%7D-Unsafe-Foods-%26amp%3B-Ingredients/

Garlic Scape Pesto Cheesy Flatbread Pizza

Ingredients

• 1 pound pizza dough (some suggestions from my Visual Pizza Dough Recipe Index)
• olive oil for brushing on the crust (about 1 Tablespoon)
• ½ cup garlic scape pesto (this one used basil for the leaves and pistachio for the nut)
• 1½ cups shredded Italian cheese blend--one containing fontina is most excellent

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit, and if you've got a pizza stone, preheat that as well. If not, use a cookie sheet. Here's an Amazon affiliate link to a stone similar to mine.
2. On an oiled piece of parchment, which has saved my bum many a time for utter pizza catastrophe, stretch out the dough into a shape that pleases you. Put it on the floor and take a picture. 
3. Brush the dough with some olive oil, then spread pesto across the top in a thin layer.  
4. Scatter cheese across the top. 
5. Bake for 5-8 minutes on the parchment, then shimmy the crust off the parchment and bake directly on the stone (or cookie sheet) for another 3-5 minutes until the cheese is browned and bubbly. 
6. Slice (Amazon affiliate link to my favorite pizza slicer--it's a workhorse) and serve. Save any leftovers to serve alongside spaghetti--it's an excellent combination.

This post is shared on the From the Farm Blog Hop, Clever Chicks Blog Hop, Tasty Tuesdays, What's Cookin' Wednesday, Eating Inside The Box