Learning to Cook: Pesto Pizza

Part of this learning-to-be-an-adult process is the fact that I now have to fend for myself in the kitchen.  Thankfully Real HouseMom is a whiz in the kitchen, so I've helped her here and there and picked up some of her tricks.

But not enough that I actually know how to cook.

Because I don't.

I mean, I'm great at boiling pasta, mashing potatoes and scrambling eggs (and I make awesome sauteed vegetables, if I do say so myself), but beyond that I'm clueless.

Thanks to my addiction obsession with Pinterest, my Food board is chock-full of meal ideas that I want to try.  I asked for (and received) a Crock-Pot for Christmas, so there are a ton of slow-cooker recipes that sound delightful.  I've repinned meals that are low-fat, meat-free, extra-cheesy, five-minute and every other category you can think of.

My theory is: the more ideas I have of yummy meals, the more likely I am to actually teach myself to cook......and not just order from Grub-Hub or fix myself a PB sandwich.

ANYWAY, I digress (as always).  So.....

Drumroll please.....

Here is the first meal I made for myself in my new big girl apartment (courtesy of that $130 trip to the Jewel).

I was too excited to take "during" photos, but I'm proud of the "after"!  Plus it's too easy to need photos =)

TA-DA!!!  It's a pesto pizza!

And seriously, it was delish!

Here's the recipe that I loosely followed: Budget Bytes' Pesto Focaccia Pizza

By loosely, I mean that I just bought a whole-wheat pizza crust.  I'm learning to cook.... teaching myself to make pizza dough/focaccia bread is way too much at this stage.  It was fun and super easy-- just a pre-made pizza crust, jar of pesto, bag of shredded Mozz and some roma tomatoes.  Even I couldn't screw it up!  I just followed the cooking instructions on the label of the pizza crust and it turned out great =)

If you have any recipe recommendations or first-time cooking tales, I'd love to hear them!

Have a great Thursday =)
-Jules