4 Cheese Ricotta Pizza

It’s March, which typically means Lent for Christians and meatless meals on Fridays for Catholics, so I challenged the Sunday Funday crew to hit me with their best Meatless Main Dishes today.

In my house, Friday night generally means pizza-movie night.  It’s the one night we forgo the dinner table and take our pizza into the living room.  When the kids were little, we used to let them choose the weekly movie.  It quickly devolved into a weekly argument about the movie, so we put them on a rotating schedule…which quickly turned into the same 2 movies every other week…#boring.

Several years ago, I added Hubs and me to the rotation to get us a little variety, though honestly, now that the kids are older (teen and tween) they’re more likely to pick a new movie over a repeat.  We spent a year (maybe two?!?) going through the animated Disney movies in order, took a little tour through 80’s and 90’s classics and now we’re (finally) starting Marvel (darn that PG-13 rating!)

Anyway, pizza-movie night is a tradition, though in Lent I refuse to make plain cheese pizza every week for 6 weeks #boringagain.  We have cheese pizza once, maybe twice and fill in other meatless meals (with a movie to follow), the rest of the time.

On plain cheese pizza nights, I try to have a more interesting meatless pizza for Hubs and I to enjoy.  This one is especially great if you have just a little ricotta leftover from a different recipe (like Roman-Style Meatloaf).

Hubs and I enjoyed the pop of flavor from the 4-cheese combo as well as the veggies while the kids were grudgingly content with their plain cheese (given the choice they love a 3 eat pizza).  Plus, pizzas like this keep pizza-movie night in play!

Sunday Funday

Meatless Main Dishes

• 4 Cheese Ricotta Pizza by Amy’s Cooking Adventures
• Peas & Mushrooms Curry by Sneha’s Recipe
• Matar Ka Nimona by The Mad Scientist’s Kitchen
• Easy Meatless Lasagna by A Day in the Life on the Farm

4 Cheese Ricotta Pizza

Pizza Dough

Ricotta Sauce

¾ cup ricotta cheese

2 cloves garlic

3 tablespoons parmesan cheese

1 tablespoon olive oil

⅛ teaspoon black pepper

Toppings

½ tablespoon butter

4 ounces portabella mushrooms, sliced

½ small onion, diced

6-8 cherry tomatoes, diced

1 ½ cups mozzarella-provolone cheese blend

Fresh basil, shredded

Prepare the dough according to recipe instructions and preheat the oven (and pizza stone, if using) to 425 degrees F.

Roll out the dough into 2 rounds and place on 2 pizza stones.  Mix together the ricotta sauce ingredients.  Spread half over each dough round.  Top with the remaining toppings except the basil.  Bake in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes or until the cheese is melted and beginning to brown.  Top with basil, slice, and serve.