Easy Béchamel Pizza

Homemade pizza is fantastic and very versatile. You can make different shapes, play around with different ingredients and even make personal smaller portions, completely customized. Pizza parties are a great way for your guests help you cook, without making it seem like a chore - even when the pizza party is just you and your kids. I came up with this pizza recipe many moons ago, when I decided to mix things up and experiment with different sauces. I tried a few white sauces, such as Alfredo, when I thought of using a modified béchamel sauce - an easy, lighter béchamel!

Ingredients:

Pizza dough
Fresh mozzarella cheese
Fresh prosciutto
Béchamel sauce (recipe below)
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons of horseradish cream
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
Oregano
Pepper

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. If using a pizza stone, heat it up while you prepare your pizza.

2. Prepare the dough. You can buy fresh pizza dough at your local supermarket, but you can also make it fresh from scratch - use my Easy Peasy Pizza Dough recipe! Shape your dough as preferred.

3. Add the olive oil and horseradish to your shaped dough and spread it around. I find a brush the best gadget to do this with.

4. Sprinkle a few slices of garlic over the pizza, then add a few table spoons of the béchamel sauce to the top, and spread it around (recipe below).

5. Top the pizza with pieces of fresh mozzarella and prosciutto, as much or as little as you like. Sprinkle the remaining slices of garlic, some oregano and pepper.

6. Cook pizza for 20 minutes and serve.

Butter-less Béchamel Sauce

Ingredients:

1 cup of milk
2 teaspoons of flour
1/4 cup of stock (any kind)
Ground nutmeg
Salt and pepper

Preparation:

1. Add milk to a 2 quart saucepan on medium heat.

2. Put flour in a small bowl. Take a few tablespoons of the heated milk, and add to flour. Stir until flour is dissolved, adding a little more milk if necessary.

3. Take the flour dissolved in milk, and add back to the saucepan and mix.

4. Add the stock, salt and pepper to taste and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly. When the mixture has thickened and reduced almost half way, remove from heat. At this point stir in the nutmeg.

Béchamel sauce does not usually have stock, but I like adding it because it gives the sauce more flavor. For the Béchamel pizza, I prefer to make this sauce without butter, because I think that the fat and grease of the milk and cheese are enough for this dish.