I still have a few leaves of basil left on my puny little basil plant, which is just as well. When I was giving this recipe for what to do with fresh basil, I forgot my other favorite — a quick little pizza with a lot of good stuff in it.

It’s just something I came up with when I had one of those Boboli pizza crusts to work with and didn’t have any marinara sauce handy. These are the directions to make one individual sized pizza — for multiples or a bigger pizza, you’d have to scale it up.

Chicken Basil Pizza

Ingredients:

• One 8″ pre-prepared pizza crust (like Boboli)
• 1/2 cup of white meat chicken, cooked
• Ranch dressing
• 6-8 leaves of fresh basil
• Italian seasoning
• 3/4 cup of Italian mix grated cheese (I found one that was a mix of Mozzarella, Parmesan, Fontana, Romano, Provolone and Asiago — magnifico!)

1. Preheat the oven or toaster oven according to pizza crust directions
2. Put an even layer of chicken on the crust and drizzle ranch dressing over it. (Don’t lay it on as thick as a marinara sauce — the ranch dressing has a slightly tangy flavor and you want it to taste light.)
3. Chop basil leaves. Or do what I do — just hold all the leaves stacked together and snip them into very thin strips with the kitchen shears. Add the basil evenly over the other toppings.
4. Layer on the grated cheese.
5. Sprinkle with Italian seasoning.
6. Cook until cheese is melted and everything is a light brown — about 12 minutes on the pizza settings of my toaster oven.

Yum! I think there’s room for a little experimentation. For instance, you could add some roasted garlic to it. But I’m afraid I’d pass out from sheer deliciousness.