Friday Night Garden Pizza

Ingredients

• 1 ball Whole wheat pizza dough, at room temperature for 1 hour
• 1 cup Low-sodium marinara sauce
• 6 oz Part-skim mozzarella, torn
• 1 cup Cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 Zucchini, shaved into ribbons
• 2 cloves Garlic, thinly sliced
• 2 tbsp Extra-virgin olive oil
• ¼ tsp Red pepper flakes
• ½ cup Fresh basil, torn
• 2 cups Arugula
• 2 tbsp Parmesan cheese, grated
• 1 tbsp juice Lemon

Method

1. Put the stone or steel on the top rack and heat the oven to its absolute maximum — 500-550°F — for a full 45 minutes. Home pizza fails on temperature, not technique.
2. Stretch the dough on a floured peel or parchment. Do not roll it; press from the center out with your fingertips and let gravity do the rest.
3. Sauce thinly — a scant half cup per pizza. Too much sauce is why home pizza goes soggy.
4. Top: cheese, cherry tomatoes, zucchini ribbons, garlic, a drizzle of oil. Let each kid build their own half.
5. Bake 7-9 minutes until the crust is blistered and the cheese is browning in spots.
6. Out of the oven: torn basil, and a handful of arugula tossed with lemon and oil piled in the center. The greens wilt just slightly against the hot crust.

Notes

✨ The restaurant touch

Dressed arugula piled on after baking. It turns a homemade pizza into something you would order.

🧒 For the kids

The whole recipe is the kid tweak. Give them their own dough ball, let them make it badly, and eat it anyway.

🌿 From the garden

August: cherry tomatoes, zucchini and basil walk in from the yard and go straight on the dough.

🥡 Leftovers

Reheat slices in a dry skillet over medium with a lid, 4 minutes. Crisp bottom, melted top, never soggy.

Per serving

Computed from USDA FoodData Central values. A planning tool, not medical advice.