Pizza Throwdown!

It’s Friday night and the mood is right…gunna have some fun, show you how it’s done…TGIF! Well, it’s Friday night and that means two things…it’s pizza night! and Monk is on =-D We took advantage of the afternoon break in the rain to run out to Trader Joe’s and pick up a few ingredients we needed. After which we of course popped into Starbucks to get a tasty Caramel Brule Latte! Home at last, and ready for some food, we set to work prepping our ingredients. Megan was making a delicious 4 cheese, sweet Italian chicken sausage pizza and I was making my BBQ chicken pizza. We got out our cutting boards, starting roasting our garlic, and starting rolling out our dough. Chop. Chop. Saute. Roll. Sprinkle. Dice. Soon our pizzas were sauced, cheesed, topped and ready for the oven! When the crust was nice and crispy, and the cheese a perfect golden brown we knew they were ready to eat! Out of the oven and onto the plate, we sat down to our favorite Friday night meal and dug in! Both pizzas were delicious! Now we are getting ready to relax with some hot tea, cookies, and Monk courtesy of DVR. What cookies you ask? Well, luckily we both had leftover dough so we are indulging in some Pumpkin Cookies and Chocolate Chip Cookies with Hazelnut! Yummy!


Happy Cooking!

Megan’s Four Cheese Italian Chicken Sausage Pizza

1 store bought pizza dough
1 bag (I use 3/4 of the bag for a large size pizza) Trader Joe’s Quattro Formaggio Cheese
1 roasted red bell pepper, diced (Trader Joe’s sells roasted red bell peppers in a jar, they come 3 to a jar)
1/2 cup sliced crimini mushrooms (sautéed in olive oil)
4 cloves garlic, smashed and roasted until it can be easily made into a paste
2 sweet Italian chicken sausages, diced (sold at Trader Joe’s in the meat section. Sausages are pre-cooked, and just need to be heated through)
Trader Joes pizza sauce (sold in a jar near the pasta sauces)

Set dough out for 20 minutes and pre-heat oven to 450 degrees.  Smash four cloves of garlic and place on a piece of aluminum foil. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with coarse sea salt. Gather foil together at the top and twist tightly so no oil will leak out, and place in the preheated oven. Lightly flour your workspace as well as the dough and rolling in. Roll out dough to desired thickness. I like a nice crispy crust, so I roll the dough out thin enough to get a nice crunch to the crust. (Make sure you don’t roll it out too thin though, otherwise the dough will rip or tear, and may not be able to hold up under all the toppings. I’ve learned the hard way!) Place the dough on pizza pan and make sure it is smooth and free of tears or rips in the dough.  Spoon on the pizza sauce and spread evenly over the crust,making sure to leave a free edge of unsauced crust. After garlic has been roasting about 5-7 minutes, and becomes fragrant, take out foil package and open carefully. Dump contents onto cutting board and with the flat side of a large chefs knife, gently mash the garlic into a paste. Spread the paste all over the pizza sauce, mixing the roast garlic paste in with the pizza sauce. YUM! Next top the pizza with the 4 cheese blend. Sprinkle the crimini mushrooms and diced chicken sausage (which I sautéed in olive oil, together, until the sausage was browned and the mushrooms were tender) Lastly, for a nice pop of color, sprinkle the diced roasted red pepper on top of the pizza. Place into the 450 degree oven and bake for 15 minutes, or until the cheese is nice and golden and bubbly. Slice pizza with a pizza cutter and enjoy!!! Mangia Bene! 

Mindy’s BBQ Chicken Pizza

1 store bought pizza dough
3 -4 tbsp. BBQ sauce (you can put as much as you like…I just don’t like a ton of sauce)
2-3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
2 bell peppers, diced (red, green, yellow, or orange..whatever combo you like!)
1/2 onion, diced
5 pieces bacon, cooked and chopped
1 cup grilled chicken strips, chopped (I like Trader Joe’s Just Grillin’  Chicken Strips)
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Set dough out for 20 minutes and pre-heat oven to 450 F. Mince two cloves of garlic and place on a piece of aluminum foil. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Bake in oven for about 10 minutes, then set aside.  In a medium size pan cook up the bacon. When the bacon is done set it aside and toss the chicken into the pan with the bacon grease. Cook until chicken is no longer frozen and is slightly browned. Add in bell peppers and onions and cook for about 4 minutes. Turn off heat and set pan aside. Sprinkle rolling surface with flour and roll out your dough to the desired thickness. Transfer dough to pizza pan. Top with bbq sauce, roasted garlic, and cheese. Spoon on chicken mixture and add bacon, and bake in the oven for 15 minutes or until cheese is golden brown.