Fresh Vegetable Pizza Appetizer

Total Time: 58 mins Preparation Time: 40 mins Cook Time: 18 mins

Ingredients

• 2 (13 7/8 ounce) cans refrigerated ready-made pizza dough or 2 (10 7/8 ounce) cans refrigerated crescent dinner rolls
• 8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise or 1/2 cup low-fat mayonnaise
• 1 (1 ounce) package dry ranch dressing mix
• 1/2 head fresh broccoli, top florets only
• 1 bunch spring onion, including tops, thinly sliced
• 1 -2 fresh ripe tomato, peeled, seeds removed, diced
• 1/2 cucumber, peeled, seeds removed, diced
• 4 ounces grated sharp cheddar cheese (1 cup) or 4 ounces shredded parmesan cheese (1 cup)
• sliced green olives (optional) or black olives (optional)
• thinly sliced purple onion, chopped (optional)
• thinly sliced celery (optional)
• grated carrot (optional)
• minced red bell peppers (optional) or green bell pepper (optional)
• sliced and diced summer squash (optional)
• sliced mushrooms (optional)
• sliced asparagus spear (optional)
• almost any vegetables, you like raw (optional)

Recipe

• 1 preheat oven to 375°f.
• 2 lightly grease 17x11 rectangular cookie sheet or a 16-ounce pizza pan.
• 3 press pizza dough into pan to form a crust.
• 4 bake as directed on package until crust is done and just slightly browned on top.
• 5 do not overbake.
• 6 cool.
• 7 mix sauce ingredients together and spread over cooled crust.
• 8 prepared all of the vegetables of choice by dicing them into very small pieces, placing each vegetable in a separate bowl or stack.
• 9 ***pay special attention to the tomatoes, as you need to drain these on paper towels to remove all excess moisture.
• 10 blot both top and bottom of tomatoes until they are dry.
• 11 ***sprinkle each vegetable, along with the cheese, evenly over the pizza, covering the cream cheese sauce in a decorative fashion.
• 12 cover entire pizza with plastic wrap and gently press toppings into the cream cheese.
• 13 refrigerate until serving time.
• 14 (i prefer to refrigerate overnight to let flavors blend.) cut into small, appetizer servings (about 1"x1") (i use a pizza cutter for this).
• 15 don't be tempted to add too many toppings to this pizza.
• 16 toppings need to adhere to cream cheese to make it neater to serve and eat; however, i always have some topping fall away when i cut this.
• 17 ***i have kept this pizza in the refrigerator for several days, and it was still very delicious.
• 18 substitute any of the toppings you like in place of the ones listed.
• 19 i always select toppings that have a variety of complementary colors for a pretty presentation.