Squash and fresh thyme pizza: just like Totino's!

No matter how committed you may be to a vegetarian, vegan, seasonal, organic, macro, you-name-it diet, you've got at least one guilty pleasure. And don't tell me it's brown rice. For me, it's mac and cheese. Not homemade. Not whole wheat. Not organic. The radioactive-orange/ made-with-twenty-ingredients-I-can't-pronounce Kraft kind. There's something oddly comforting about squeezing that orange goo all over those noodles, however revolting that might sound. Although I'm pretty successful at not eating anything straight from a box these days, I just love the stuff.

For my boyfriend, Andy, it's Totino's pizza. When he's had a rough day/night of work, he's wont to pick it up at the Snappy Mart up the street from his house. Although I've never tasted it myself, from what I hear, it's pure greasy gas station goodness. Totino's wikipedia page provides further enlightenment: in 2006, Totino's phased out the use of 100% real cheese on its pizzas, replacing it with a "combination of real and imitation cheeses," which led to criticism by the FDA over the new, doubled amount of saturated fat. We sure do love our processed cheese!
One Saturday a few weeks ago, I picked up whatever looked good at the farmer's market with the intention of figuring it out later: some baby yellow squashes, some fresh thyme, and some brussels sprouts. What I figured out was pizza: sauteed squash with a fresh thyme/lemon pesto and oozy, pungent Italian robiola cheese. I'm a bad blogger: I don't remember exactly what went in to the thyme pesto. I will tell you, though, that the lemon was key. It really brightened up the flavor.And, somehow, I made a pizza that Andy swore tasted uncannily like Totino's (except with real cheese.) Becuase Robiola is such a flavorful cheese, a little really went a long way. Apparently, thyme is the secret ingredient in their recipe and satisfied (at least for now) the gas station pizza craving. Success! We served it with some of Andy's seared brussels sprouts and some nice Spanish white wine. The minerality of this Velarde Blanco really complemented the herbal flavor of the thyme and brought out a nuttiness in the Robiola cheese that wasn't immediately apparent.