Crave Wednesday: Manchego and Chorizo Pizza

While you were all cuddling up with your loved ones, Thatfamily was jetting off to be part of Winter Storm Neptune.  I'll update you on our adventures tomorrow, but today I want to start at the end our journey.  On Monday we flew home from the northeast and everything was smooth sailing.

We managed to get on our flight out of Newark before the worst of the storm hit, which meant no delays.  They announced the connecting gate as we prepared our decent into Dallas, and it was just down from the arrival gate!  And we had about an hour until boarding! That's where our luck ended.  Right when we landed they announced we had our gate changed, to a completely different terminal.  And we were running about 20 minutes late.

Nevertheless, we managed to make it to our gate with 15 minutes to spare.  We boarded, taxied to the runway, and were about to take off - when the pilot came over the loudspeaker to announce the toilets wouldn't flush and we had to go back to the gate.  He promised it was an easy fix, usually caused by someone not properly closing some lavatory lock, so maintenance would have us on our way in no time.  Except we ran into a small problem - there were no open gates.  So we drove around the airport until one finally opened up.  And then came the next problem - the maintenance crew was undergoing a shift change.  We sat on the plane for an hour and 10 minutes until they finally fixed the issue and we were on our way.

Of course this meant we got in a lot later than when we planning.  So I resorted to an old standby.  I remember when I was a kid and Boboli pizza crusts were first introduced.  They became the go-to for every slumber party.  There was nothing more exciting for a kid than getting to top their own pizzas.  And what's nice is they make dinner so very quick, because they're already cooked, you really just need to heat the pizzas until the cheese melts.  Which means the most time consuming portion of this meal is boiling the water for the broccoli rabe.  And as usual, I always appreciate veggies after traveling, when I don't get them the way I do at home.  So fresh broccoli, tomatoes, and onions make a welcome homecoming meal.

 Manchego and Chorizo Pizza

1/2 lb broccoli rabe, trimmed

1/8 tsp salt

1 prebaked pizza crust

1/2 cup shredded Manchego cheese

2/3 cup chipped plum tomato

1/4 cup vertically sliced red onion

1 link chorizo sausage, thinly sliced

1. Preheat oven to 450.  Cook broccoli for 4 minutes or until tender.  Drain and rinse with cold water.  Drain.  Squeeze excess moisture from broccoli rabe and pat dry with paper towels.  Coarsely chop.
2. Sprinkle broccoli rabe with salt.
3. Place pizza crust on a baking sheet.  Sprinkle evenly with Manchego cheese.
4. Top with broccoli rabe, plum tomatoes, red onion, and chorizo.  Bake for 12 minutes.  Cut into 8 wedges.