Middle Eastern Pizza with Chickpeas and Herbs

I bought big bunches of parsley and mint at the farmers market this past weekend. I am still planning to make some parsley pesto out of them, along with some scapes, but there was enough for a few other endeavors as well. I also used chives from my garden and fresh mozzarella that I made over the weekend from Upinngil Farm milk. I wasn't totally certain that this was going to work as pizza, but it turned out to be really good.

Later in the summer I would use fresh tomatoes instead of sauce for this recipe. Actually, I did notice one vendor with tomatoes at the farmers market this weekend (cucumbers, too), but they were a standard variety conventionally grown and I figured we could wait for the good ones.

1 14-inch pizza crust
olive oil
1/2 cup tomato sauce
1 cup coarsely mashed/chopped chickpeas
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup chopped chives
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
2 Tbsp minced fresh mint
3-4 oz. mozzarella, shredded (or in chunks if fresh)

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Lightly paint the pizza crust with olive oil. Spread on the tomato sauce.

In a small bowl, combine the chickpeas, lemon juice, 1 Tbsp olive oil, and salt and pepper. Spread this mixture over the sauce, then sprinkle the chives, parsley and mint over the chickpeas. If using standard mozzarella, sprinkle it on top. If using fresh, start baking the pizza without it and add it in the last 3-5 minutes (I have found this keeps it from soaking in too much).

Bake the pizza for 15-18 minutes, until the crust is done and cheese is melted.

Serves 3-4.