Tasty Bites: Panic Pizza

By Candy, RN (Steele the Day)

Why panic? Because yesterday Ginny sent me a message “Are you going to have a post for me tomorrow?” YIKES! Somehow between trying to get my computer humming again and Thursday, time slipped away. And when time slips away, I fall back on pizza.

I went to the photo archives and sure enough, I found one of my favorites. Add to that the fact that I keep pizza dough in the refrigerator most of the time, thanks to Pioneer Woman. Up until I “met her” (I wish), I could never make pizza dough right. So with a couple of modifications, here’s my honey-wheat pizza dough stand-by. It’s supposed to keep in the refrigerator for three or four days, and I may or may not have used it after 10 days and it turned out just fine.

Pizza Dough (makes 2 pizzas)

1 ¼ cup warm water

1 ¼ t active dry yeast

2 cups white flour

2 cups whole wheat flour

⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons honey

Coat a medium sized mixing bowl with olive oil and set aside. Sprinkle yeast over warm water and let rest for 10 minutes. Mix flours and salt together in mixing bowl with paddle attachment. Drizzle in olive oil and mix on low until incorporated. Pour in the water/yeast mixture and mix until you have a nice sticky ball. Place in mixing bowl and flip around until it’s nicely coated with oil. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use.

P-Dub’s knock-off recipe from California Pizza Kitchen is perfect – an unexpected explosion of flavors that will knock your socks off. You probably have most of the ingredients on hand, especially if you like to buy chicken breasts on sale, season, bake and shred them, and keep them in the freezer for panic dinners like I do. Though it’s tastiest with fresh mozzarella, it works fine with the regular bagged shredded pizza mozzarella you find at your dairy counter.

CPK BBQ Chicken Pizza

1/2 of pizza dough, above (or buy a pre-made crust)

1 ½ cups shredded cooked chicken

½ cup barbecue sauce

1 tablespoon olive oil

Salt to taste

16 ounces, weight fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced thin

½ whole large red onion, sliced very thin

Chopped Cilantro, to taste

Preheat oven to 375°. Roll out pizza crust and place on a well-oiled pizza pan. Drizzle with olive oil. Spread barbecue sauce over crust, top with cheese, chicken, and red onion. Bake for about 18 minutes or until crust is brown and cheese is hot and bubbly. Top with chopped cilantro.

Hint: this bakes best on a pizza stone rather than a metal pizza pan.

Candy Steele is a registered nurse who has worked with cardiac patients for over thirty years. “Functional foods” have become her passion, and she enjoys sharing her love of cooking, a random life and a faithful Jesus with her friends at Steele (the Day). She is blessed with three grown children, a new daughter-in-law, and a kind and patient husband who only knows how to fix popcorn (but she’s OK with that).