Basil Pesto Pizza, Basil Rathbone

Italian Entree

BASIL PESTO PIZZA

INGREDIENTS

2 cups fresh basil
4 garlic cloves
3 tablespoons ground walnuts
¾ cup olive oil
¾ cup grated Parmesan cheese
¼ teaspoon white pepper

1 tablespoon flour
no-stick spray
1 pizza crust (bought or from below recipe)
1 cup grated mozzarella cheese

SPECIAL UTENSIL

pizza pan
pizza cutter

Makes 1 pizza. Takes 30 minutes plus time needed to preheat oven. Allow 2 hours 15 minutes total if you are making your crust.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. While oven heats, make basil pesto by dicing basil, garlic cloves, and walnuts. Add olive oil, basil, garlic, walnuts, Parmesan, and white pepper to pan. Sauté for 5 minutes at medium-high heat or until garlic softens. Stir pesto frequently. Remove from heat.

Dust pizza pan with flour and spray with no-stick spray. Put pizza crust on pizza pan. Spread basil pesto evenly over the pizza crust. Sprinkle mozzarella evenly over pizza. Put pizza in oven and bake at 400 degrees for 10-to-15 minutes or until cheese or crust is golden brown.

TIDBITS

1) Culinary historians say young Basil Rathbone was named after the herb, basil. Old Basil Rathbone was still named after the herb. In between, he got teased a lot. He took up acting in desperation, for no one cares if a successful actor acts weird or has a strange name. His brilliant performances in the Sherlock Holmes movies gave him that success. The teasing stopped.

2) But the inner anguish from his teasing did not. Then one day while in Spain filming for the movie, The Name Escapes Me, he met a little boy selling basil pesto pizza. It was excellent. Basil Rathbone spread the delicious recipe everywhere he went.. No longer would the little Basils of the world be teased. The actor was even nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. And the little boy? Why, he became Juan Carlos I of Spain, the man who ended Generalísimo Franco’s brutal dictatorship.

– Chef Paul

My cookbook, Eat Me: 169 Fun Recipes From All Over the World,  and my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, are available in paperback or Kindle on amazon.com

The cookbook is also available as an e-book on Nook

or on my website-where you can get a signed copy at: www.lordsoffun.com