[Returning with a bang! You old so and so...congrats on the life updates, and thanks for sharing! --MNW]

It's been quite a long time since I've been active, but life gets in the way. So I'm going to dedicate the next 15 paragraphs telling you about my entire life since childbirth...

...

...

...

Yeah, no. I can't stand that stuff. So long story short, 2020 happened, moved my wedding, finally got married in July (at Pretty Place Chapel on the border of SC and NC and had the reception on the shores of Lake Hartwell in Clemson). I'm still cooking as much as ever, but I've got plenty of dated technology keeping me from posting my recipes. So I'll ease into this one, to try to get back into the swing of things. This is a very poorly-photographed post since I made the spur-of-the-moment decision to share this 75% of the way through. That, and I needed to clean out the refrigerator, so why not make chicken salad out of chicken s...well, you get it. My basil plant is getting close to end-of-life with cold weather looming, so I did make homemade pesto for this, but the jar type works just fine.

Ingredients:

-Refrigerated pizza crust (I use a "bistro thin" type)

-1 tbsp basil pesto

-1/4 red onion, thinly sliced

-1 Roma tomato, thinly sliced

-1 cup shredded cheese (I had pepperjack, monterey jack, and cheddar on hand, so I shredded those)

-1/2 cup olives

-1/4 to 1/2 cup canned mushrooms (or whatever you have left in the jar in the back of your fridge)

-Garlic powder (or 1-2 cloves fresh garlic, minced)

-4 artichoke hearts, sliced

-1 Anaheim pepper, sliced (banana pepper works great for this)

-1 Jalapeno pepper, diced (optional, if you want the extra heat)

-Handful of fresh basil leaves, coated lightly in olive or vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 425 deg F. Flour dust a pizza stone and roll out the crust. Spread the basil pesto evenly over the crust. Sprinkle with garlic powder or spread out the minced garlic. Spread out the onions evenly, sprinkle 1/3 of the cheese over top, then add the tomatoes, peppers, artichokes, olives, mushrooms, and top with remaining cheese.

Bake for 14-16 minutes or until crust is brown, turn to Broil and let cheese melt for ~1 minute. Turn off oven, Top with fresh basil and place back into oven with door slightly cracked.

Let leaves wilt slightly and remove. Let cool and serve.

This is far from my best work, and frankly, not a great post, but I wanted to get back into this after finding out a local food blogger stepped away from it because life got in the way. Forgive the posting only being occasional, but I wanted this to be something I looked forward to, not something I felt obligated to do, as it came to feel.

I'll be whipping up some salsa soon with lots of local-grown (many in my backyard) peppers, and as I've recently started enjoying, will be super-spicy.