Shrimp Florentine Pizza

November 3, 12:23 PMRichmond Food ExaminerRobbin Webb

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Shrimp Florentine Pizza
Robbin Webb

       In the historic Shockoe Bottom area of Richmond, VA, lies a local pizza landmark. Bottoms Up Pizza has been around since 1990, and they are continuously voted "Richmond's Best Pizza", year after year. One would expect nothing less with signature pizzas on it's menu such as The Chesapeake, which has sweet onions, crab meat, and seasoned with Old Bay. The Greek is also a favorite, which has spinach, onions, tomatoes, Feta, and black olives. There is something for everyone. The meat lover, the vegetarian, even a low-carb pizza which offers a portabella mushroom as it's "crust".

I would never try to replicate a Bottoms Up Pizza. Their crust takes 12 hours to make, after all!  I do, however, enjoy different varieties of pizza on occasion- and do not feel like making the haul downtown. This recipe was brought forth after finding a pound of shrimp on sale, BOGO, at my local Food Lion (I made 2 pizzas!). If you don't like shrimp, you can use chicken, crab, or mushrooms.

Shrimp Florentine Pizza

1 can of ready-made Pillsbury pizza dough (if you're feeling like Luigi, check out this great pizza dough recipe)

1 lb cooked shrimp, chopped (coarsely). De-veined and tails off

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp flour

1 tsp garlic, minced or pressed with a garlic press

1/2 cup half and half cream

2 oz grated Parmesan cheese

2 oz mozzarella cheese

6 oz frozen chopped spinach, thawed

5 oz basil pesto sauce

2 cups mozzarella cheese, grated

Preheat oven to 425.

For the Alfredo sauce: Melt butter in saucepan over medium heat. Add flour and whisk to form a roux. Add the half and half. Simmer on low heat, whisking constantly until the sauce thickens. Do not allow to boil. When sauce is thick enough, (about as thick as you'd expect a good Alfredo sauce to be) mix in the mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses. Stir constantly to melt evenly. Save the remaining mozzarella for the topping.

For the spinach: Squeeze as much water out of the spinach as possible. Put the spinach and the pesto in a blender or food processor, and blend together until a thick paste forms. If you do not have a blender or food processor, just mix together thoroughly- and make sure pesto is incorporated well into the spinach.

Place the prepared pizza dough on a lightly oiled baking sheet or pizza stone. If making a rectangle pizza, press the dough into the edges of the pan. If making a pizza pie, form the dough into a circle and try to get the dough to be thicker around the edges so that the toppings don't run off into your oven (as you can probably tell from my photo, I did not follow this rule well enough, and that exact thing happened to me- prompting my smoke detector!). Spread the Alfredo sauce over the pizza dough. Spread spinach/pesto mixture over the Alfredo. Top with shrimp. Add the remaining mozzarella cheese. Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown around the edges.

Enjoy your pizza! And if you live in Richmond and haven't been to Bottoms Up yet, slip on your Crocs, Air Jordans, Adidas, or Chuckie T's and make your way to the Bottom. Actually, if you wear those shoes, you've probably been to the Bottom. Either way, Bottoms Up is delicious!

*For 2 pizza's- just double all of the ingredients.