Pizza Caprese with Garlic Cheese Bread

My Italian ancestors will be so proud of me. I made pizza! Alright...I didn't make the dough, but I will do that on some special, ambitious day. To make the pizza a meal, I also made cheesy garlic bread. I realize that that pretty much is almost the same thing as pizza. Apparently, all decent side dishes to serve with pizza, are essentially pizza. Regardless! This was delicious. Beloved by all in my home (AKA....Michael). And seriously...the pictures speak for themselves. Drool away!

Pizza Caprese

Taken from What Megan's Making

Ingredients:

• 1 pizza crust (from your favorite recipe, or frozen dough.)
• 1-2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 large garlic clove, smashed
• 2 large, fresh tomatoes (or 3-4 Roma- I used 3 Roma), thinly sliced
• Mozzarella cheese (optional: Romano cheese)
• 10 leaves fresh basil, or dried basil as much as you want (yeah, I used the dried stuff.)
• Salt, pepper, garlic powder to taste

Preparation:

• Prepare pizza dough
• Place olive oil and garlic in container, and microwave 30 seconds. Allow mixture to sit for 5 minutes.
• Roll out pizza dough and brush with garlic oil.
• Place tomatoes in a single layer on the crust, then top with cheese and basil. Season.
• Bake according to pizza crust instructions

That's it! Isn't it so easy? I'm not gonna lie...I've been playing around with different pizza topping combinations (Who am I kidding? I'm picky. I just like cheese. But I've used pizza sauce and different cheeses! And I put chicken on one for Michael once!), and have made pizza multiple times since this first awesome experience! If you are not making homemade pizza yet, START!

Um....yum.

Garlic Cheese Bread

From Savory Sweet Life

Ingredients:

• 1 baguette, horizontally cut in half
• 1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter-softened/partially melted
• 4-6 cloves garlic, minced.
• 1-1.5 cups shredded cheese (mozzarella, Romano, Parmesan, cheddar, your call!)
• Optional: Parsley, sprinkled on top.

Preparation:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• Place both halves of baguette on cookie sheet with the crust side down and the cut side face up.
• In a small bowl, combine butter and garlic and spread evenly on each baguette half. Press garlic into air pockets.
• Bake bread 15 minutes and remove. Change oven to broil.
• Sprinkle cheese over the baguette halves and put back in oven.
• Broil 1 minute or until cheese is melted and bubbly.
• Remove, cut, and serve.
• Freezes well in a Ziploc freezer bag.