"Nick's" Pizza

There's a place near Indiana University's campus called Nick's...Nick's...something. Nick's Pub? Nick's Hut? Nick's Extremely Shady-Looking Eating Establishment? Not sure. It looks pretty dreadful from the outside. If you try and go to Nick's before an IU sporting event, such as a basketball game, you'd better get there early. It's easy to find Nick's, because you'll see a line forming outside - they only let as many people inside as the restaurant can seat. Which isn't fun during basketball season for those waiting in the freezing Indiana winter. Anyway, once you are waved in, you have to wander aimlessly through the rabbit warren of a VERY CROWDED restaurant trying to find any open table, and then if you happen to find a table, you probably also need to beg some chairs. So after all of that, you'd better hope that their food is good. Well, luckily, it is FANTASTIC. I got a burger, which was good, but after I saw Ryan and his dad's pizza, I regretted my decision. Ryan absolutely fell in love with the pizza. It's very fresh-tasting. So I decided that I was going to try and re-create Nick's pizza in our kitchen. Following is my approximation of what I did - tweak to your tastes!

Sadly I do not have a picture. And that's EXTRA-unfortunate because this pizza was drop-dead gorgeous. Our camera was missing in action, packed already for our vacation, and I didn't want to hunt it down because hey...I was hungry!

"NICK'S" PIZZA

Ingredients:

1 Boboli thin crust pizza shell
1/4 lb sweet italian bulk sausage
1 green Bell pepper, cut into thin 1-inch strips
1 C baby bella mushrooms, thinly sliced
4 green onions, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, finely diced
Pizza sauce to taste (I lazily used Contadina's "Pizza Squeeze," it was actually good)
2ish C mozzarella, mozzarella and cheddar, whatever you want cheese
1/4 C fresh-grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450. Brown the sausage, drain. Put sausage in a bowl, and mix with garlic and onions. Set aside. In the skillet, sautee the green peppers and mushrooms for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Spread pizza sauce on Boboli crust. Arrange sausage mixture, green peppers, and mushrooms on crust. Place crust in the oven for 5 minutes. Remove crust from oven and drench with mozzarella/cheddar/whatever cheese. Top with the fresh-grated parmesan. Place back in the oven and turn on the broiler. Broil (on bottom rack, so your cheese doesn't burn) for 5-7 minutes or until it looks like it's done. Remove, cool, cut, and serve!

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.