Simple Supper Friday: Destructed Pesto Meatza

You may recall (or maybe you don’t) my meatza post from my very early days of blogging (or earlier I should say since I feel like I’m still in my early days). Meatza is delicious, simple and versatile, but a way to make it even simpler is to destruct it … take it apart, destroy its form. That is just what I did for today’s ‘Simple Supper Friday’ meal.

I decided to use pesto sauce, rather than tomato because I had some fresh basil that I needed to use up pronto! I didn’t really follow any sort of recipe or measurements for my pesto, but here’s what I did (roughly):

1. To the food processor, add two cloves of garlic, about 1/2 – 3/4 cup fresh basil leaves, about 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, about two to three tablespoons of walnuts, and sea salt and pepper to taste.
2. Blend everything together until all the ingredients are ground up and well incorporated.
3. Taste and adjust any ingredients if necessary.
4. Set aside.

Fresh basil pesto.

For the meat and toppings part of the meatza, I used:

• Drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 lb ground turkey thighs
• 1 C crimini mushrooms, sliced
• 1 zucchini, cut into quarter slices
• 2 roma tomatoes, chopped
• Sea salt and pepper to taste
• Dash of red pepper flakes
• 1 head of kale, chopped

Directions:

1. Heat olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add ground turkey and mix around in the pan, breaking up the chunks of meat.
2. After a minute or two, add the mushrooms and zucchini to cook with the browning meat. Add sea salt and pepper to taste.
3. Once the meat is browned, add the chopped tomatoes. I also added several sliced cherry tomatoes that I needed to use up. Stir well.
4. Now, take the pesto and add it to the pan with the meat and veggies. Stir well and add red pepper flakes to taste.
5. Serve on top of a bed of steamed kale.
6. Don’t burn your mouth like I did … blow on it, let it cool! I was excited, what can I say?

Chop the veggies!

Browning the meat with mushrooms and zucchini.

Mixing in the tomatoes.

Destructed pesto meatza atop of steamed kale.

Up close and personal with my destructed pesto meatza.