Pizza, The Cooking Channel & a Long Flight

“Pizza is a lot like sex. When it's good, it's really good. When it's bad, it's still pretty good.”

Photo by Forza-Pizza. The guy who made this one lives in the burbs of Chicago! I might need to steal his pizza oven

My favorite food is pizza. I love it. I love shitty pizza. I love delicious pizza. I love it all. It's so simple and yet so delicious. I could eat pizza three times a week and I really don't eat leftovers. Unless it's pizza.

This past Christmas the husband and I flew to Florida to visit my family. My mom was born there so growing up we traveled down there a couple of times a year, but this has been my first trip in four years. It was amazing! I wish we could have spent more time, but alas, adulthood calls and that means we have to pay the bills, which means we have to work. I enjoyed my cousins, my aunts and uncles and of course, seeing my parents and sister. I also enjoyed a ridiculous amount of food. But with all the delicious southern dishes surrounding me, I couldn't stop thinking about a dish I saw on the plane.
I know you might be thinking, "Plane food? Seriously Haukom? You're crazy" Calm down. On our flight to Florida they had the option of paying to watch TV. It was $4. How could I resist? I mean you are talking to a self diagnosed television addict here. I swiped my card, sat back and enjoyed 2 hours of The Cooking Channel. One of the programs was called David Rocco's Dolce Vita. It wasn't that great. The guy is kind of...I don't know...snobby, and the recipes on that particular episode were all similar and super simple. So simple I thought "Well shit, if I lived in Italy and wore Marc Jacob's every day I could have a cooking show too!" But what was great about his simple recipes was that I memorized them and made one the day I got home from Florida.
After the consumption of fatty and salty food all weekend, I needed something light. I made David's Grilled Foccacia Sandwich but instead made it into an Arugula Pizza with Prosciutto and Parmesan.

Ingredients
Pizza Dough
(if you have a recipe you use, use it or prepackaged dough is fine! I like Trader Joes)
Three Handfuls of fresh baby Arugula
Half of a lemon
3 tbsp Olive Oil
Minced garlic (optional)
5 thin slices of Prosciutto
Fresh shaved Parmesan
Salt

Preheat the over to whatever temperature the dough needs to bake.

I rolled out my dough. drizzled 1 tbsp of Olive Oil on the dough and rubbed a little minced garlic over it. I put it in the over for about ten minutes, or until the dough was a nice golden brown. While that is cooking, I tossed together the arugula, lemon juice and remaining olive oil in the bowl with a little salt.
When the dough is cooked, take it out of the oven, and lay the prosciutto on top. Place back in the oven for about 1 minute (or not at all, it's up to you). Remove from oven, and top with the arugula mixture. Then add shaved Parmesan. As much or as little as you like.
There. You're done.

After eating a lot of delicious yet heavy food all weekend, this was a perfect post travel meal.