Christmas Tree Flatbread with Fresh Rosemary Trees, Grapes, Pomegranate Seed Ornaments and Blue Cheese Snow, Drizzled with Honey

This is a very easy way to cheat and make a festive flatbread using refrigerated prepared pizza dough. I used Pillsbury. The flatbread is just as pretty and both savory and sweet if you decide to not take the time to make the Christmas trees. Just randomly toss your rosemary on top and press in the grapes randomly and often throughout your dough. Sprinkle cheese on after the first bake and before the last bake (as per directions below) and drizzle with honey. You will be surprised on how delicious it is. Of course, you can always make homemade focaccia, but the holidays are so busy and there are so many other things to do, sometimes you can cheat. So have fun with it, use grapes, or pomegranate seeds for the ornaments, or cut shapes out of roasted red peppers like Christmas boxes to put under the tree. The crumbled cheese resembles snow. You can even add stars is you are feeling creative. Let the kids do it. It will be as exciting an fun as it is decorating gingerbread houses. Make teams, have contests.

Prep Time: 10 minutes (if decorating extensively, then it could be much more labor intensive)

Bake Time: 15 minutes

Serves: 8 as an appetizer

Ingredients:

1 prepared pizza dough ( I used Pillsbury)

olive oil for greasing

1 bunch fresh rosemary

purple grapes

pomegranate seeds

kumquats, sliced thin

crumbled blue cheese or feta (depending on preference)

honey

sea salt

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Brush a cookie sheet with oil. Unfold the pizza dough onto the sheet. Brush the dough with just a tiny amount of olive oil and sprinkle with salt.

Now it is time to decorate. Use the fresh rosemary leaves to make a tree. Use the grapes for borders. Use the pomegranate seeds and the kumquat slices for the ornaments. You can get creative and add more if you wish. You can make stars in the sky or even cut roasted red peppers in squares to resemble boxes for presents under the trees. If you do not want to take the time to decorate the trees, then just sprinkle the rosemary and grapes on top. Make sure whatever you use at this point to press the herbs and fruit into the dough so that it stays. Reserve the cheese to add later. When done decorating, place your dough on the middle rack. Cover the dough lightly with aluminum foil that you tent so that the toppings do not stick to it. Bake for 5 minutes. Remove foil, bake for another 5 minutes, then remove from oven, sprinkle on the cheese and bake for another 5 minutes until just golden. Remove from oven, drizzle with honey. Serve warm.