Pesto Chicken Pizza

I love pizza, but am not a huge fan of tomato sauce. My favorite homemade pizza for the last year or two has been my avocado pizza. I decided to try something a little different this weekend and make the Chicken Pesto Pizza recipe I found at Annie's Eats.

However, I took a shortcut and used pre-made crust. This isn't really my favorite kind (I prefer Boboli), but this is the only one the grocery store I went to had in stock. It worked fine.

I started by toasting some pine nuts in a pan until they looked like this.

Then I toasted some garlic (with the peels still on) until the color changed slightly. When it was done, it was nice and mooshy inside, almost like roasting them in the oven. Pretty cool trick!

I am not really sure the point of this step, but I did it anyway. I put the basil in a bag and "pounded" until the leaves were bruised.

Then I grated some more (about 1/4 cup) of my parmesan cheese that I'm still using up from the week.

And in it all went to my food processor, along with about 7 tablespoons of olive oil and some salt and pepper.

And turned into this lovely, delicious pesto!

I brushed some olive oil directly onto the top and bottom of the crust, and then spread the pesto out evenly on top.

And topped with shredded pepper jack cheese, chicken (pre-cooked from earlier in the week), and cherry tomatoes cut into thirds. 

Popped it into the oven at 425 degrees for about 10 minutes. (I use a big round pizza pan to cook it. One of these days, I'm going to get a pizza stone!)

This turned out really great! It definitely gave the avocado pizza a run for its money. I will certainly be making this often in the summer, when basil basically grows like a weed in my garden! In the winter, it is so ridiculously expensive even for a tiny little container. 

Sometime, I'll try making the crust from scratch, too. 

What's your favorite kind of homemade pizza?