Pizza Shop

DS#1's favorite pizza topping is BBQ chicken. (He could eat chicken every night of the week, but that's another story.) Over the weekend we somehow ended up talking about BBQ chicken pizza and so I decided that I'd try making pizza dough in the bread machine and we'd have pizza for Monday night's dinner.

When we order pizza, the boys usually go through one themselves and I figured I'd need to make at least two pizzas. Until I read the recipe, I thought one batch of dough would be enough for two large pizzas. I was wrong. I'd have to make the dough twice.

I started making the dough yesterday morning, timing it so that the second batch would be ready when it was actually time to make the pizzas. While the first batch of dough was processing, I went ahead and cooked the chicken, added BBQ sauce, and then put it in a covered bowl to sit in the fridge for a few hours and marinate.

Here are the two pizzas assembled and ready to go in the oven.



DS anticipating the tasty goodness. (His words!)



One finished pizza and the accompanying salad.



It turned out great and tasted wonderful. The pizza was so filling that we could've gotten by with just one. But now DS and I have pizza leftovers for lunch today, so that's fine with us.

There's nothing really fancy about this recipe since I used some ready-made products and the dough recipe from my bread machine manual, but here it is:

BBQ Chicken Pizza & Bread Machine Pizza Dough

Dough:
1 Cup Beer or Water (I used water, we were out of beer)
1 tbsp. Shortening (I used olive oil)
1 tbsp. Sugar
1 tsp. Salt
3 Cups White Bread Flour
1-1/4 tsp. Yeast
2 tbsp. Cornmeal

1. Put all ingredients except for cornmeal into bread pan in the order listed.
2. Process on Dough setting.
3. Remove dough to a lightly floured surface. If necessary (it wasn't), knead in enough flour to make dough easy to handle.
4. Grease pans (two 12-inch, one 14-inch or one 15x10 inch) and sprinkle with cornmeal. (I used pizza stones so I didn't grease them but I did use the cornmeal.)
5. Roll out dough and place on pan/stone. (We used a combination of "pizza shop dough handling" and a floured rolling pin.)
5. Top each pizza with sauce, toppings, cheese, etc. Bake at 425 for 15-25 minutes, or until done. Pizza is done when edges of crust are golden and cheese is bubbly.
Yield: 1 large or 2 medium pizzas

Topping (for 2 large pizzas):
3 boneless chicken breasts, cut into small pieces
2/3 bottle BBQ sauce
1-1/2 jars of pizza sauce (about 2-3 cups)
1 green pepper, chopped into small pieces
1/2 onion, sliced thin
handful of fresh cilantro
shredded cheese (4-6 cups) (I combined mozzarella, parmesan, cheddar and jack)
Cook chicken on stove until done. Add enough BBQ sauce to coat plus a little extra. Cook for a few more minutes until the BBQ sauce is absorbed. Remove from heat and set aside.

Pour 1-1/2 jars of pizza sauce into a bowl. Add 1/2 - 1 cup of BBQ sauce (amount is per your preference). Mix and then using a ladle, spoon over pizza crust and spread to within 1/2" of crust edge.

Sprinkle on cheese. Add BBQ chicken, onion slices, and green peppers. Add cilantro leaves over everything. (We like cilantro so we probably used more than average.)

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Is it lunchtime yet? ;-)