For the dear people in my life who are not fans of mushrooms and/or olives, I sincerely apologize for this post.

I was craving some pizza for dinner last night, and instead of succumbing to the call of takeout pizza, I decided to make it at home.  I had picked up an Alvarado Street Bakery Sprouted Wheat pizza crust during my last trip to Whole Foods for a quick dinner option. One of these days, I’m hoping I’m efficient enough to be able to quickly make my own pizza dough on a work night, but after a long week of traveling for work and barely being home, I think it was ok to use a store-bought crust.

I started by prepping my ricotta cheese (the only cheese I used on this pizza) – I mixed in one minced serrano chili, some white pepper and a pinch of salt.  I had wanted to puree in some spinach or arugula, but didn’t have any in the house and was too lazy to venture out to the grocery store.  I allowed the cheese mixture to sit while I sautéed sliced mushrooms, three shallots and three cloves of minced garlic in my cast iron pan as the base for the topping.  I also sliced some green olives to top the pizza with.

Once my toppings were ready and the oven was preheated to 425F, I spread some homemade tomato/basil pizza sauce on the crust and then spread the ricotta cheese mixture on top.  I then added a thick layer of the mushroom mixture and topped the whole pizza with the green olives.

I baked the pizza for 15 minutes in the oven and then gave it a quick broil at the end for a minute. Using the ricotta cheese produced a much lower calorie option than had I used mozzarella cheese – now if only I could find enough time to try making my own cheese at home!