Fusion Pizza

I'm not trying to be trendy. This pizza developed from a love of buffalo chicken and a need for lower calorie pizza crust.

My daughter shared with me this great recipe for Buffalo Chicken:

Crockpot Buffalo Chicken

3 lbs frozen (or fresh) chicken breasts
1 bottle Franks buffalo sauce
1 packet of ranch seasoning (Hidden Valley)

Throw it all in the crockpot on low for 6-7 hours. Then shred the chicken, then cook for another hour in the crockpot to soak up juices. Then eat and enjoy!!

It is so good! I've used up to double the amount of chicken called for with excellent results. Also, I don't have a crockpot, so I put everything in a Dutch oven, put it in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes and then turn down the heat to the lowest setting, cook it for 3 or so hours, shred the chicken, and then return it to the oven for another hour. So easy!

I'm sure you can imagine lots of ways to use it. Quesadillas come to mind. But my favorite way to use it is on pizza.

You can use regular pizza dough. If you want to lighten things up, try using flour tortillas. These days I use the flour of hard white wheat for tortillas.

I discovered I can bake my tortillas on my pizza stone!

Here I'm using my new pizza peel to set the tortilla onto my new pizza stone. (Go here and scroll down to see my old pizza stone.)

The baked tortilla is ready to come out. I find this an easier way to bake them than on top of the stove, pizza or not. Either way is pretty easy, though!

And, yes, I've already managed to stain my pizza stone. The tortilla is so thin that the toppings weigh it down too much to slide off of the peel. That's how I learned to use parchment paper under the tortillas. By the way, you can put toppings on tortillas unbaked or baked. Since I wasn't making pizza with all of the tortillas, I just found it easier to pre-bake the tortillas today. Then I put the leftover ones in a gallon-size ziploc bag and put them in the refrigerator for another day.

Now for the pizza topping:

Mix together 2 parts ranch dressing and 1 part Frank's Red Hot Original Cayenne Pepper Sauce. I use light ranch dressing, or part fat-free. Some people use blue cheese dressing. Spread it thinly on the tortilla (or pizza dough).

Layer Crockpot Buffalo Chicken on top.

Sprinkle shredded mozzarella cheese, and perhaps a bit of shredded Parmesan cheese, on top.

Variations: Before adding the cheese, top with some cooked broccoli and/or sautéed onions and peppers.

 Baked to perfection!

 It's ready to be eaten!

As Easy as (Pizza) Pie!

My daughter Kirsten and her family are here from California for a few weeks. So the extended-family get-togethers have begun!

Tonight we made pizza for the masses. Everybody contributed various food items. I made the pizza dough.

For anyone who bakes pizza at home, I recommend making your own dough for the crust. It's easy to make and it tastes good.

For anyone who wants to learn how to bake yeast breads, I recommend starting with pizza dough. It's easy to make and not at all fussy.
 

Pizza Dough

Pour 1½ C warm water into large bowl.

Add:

1 T yeast

Add and mix:

2 C flour*

2 tsp. olive oil

1 tsp. salt

Continue to add flour—about 2 C more in all—until dough can be kneaded; then knead for 10 minutes.

Put 1 tsp. olive oil in the bowl. Turn the ball of dough in it until it is covered with oil. Cover the dough and let rise in a warm place for at least 1 hour, or until doubled in bulk.

After the dough has risen, punch it down, but do not knead it. For thicker crust, divide the dough into 2 parts. For thinner crust, divide the dough into 4 parts.

*You can use all-purpose flour, bread flour, or whole-wheat flour. My current favorite is white whole-wheat flour. If you are using white flour, I recommend using bread flour if you can.

NOTE: This dough is not fussy. You could make it and put it in the refrigerator to take longer to rise (up to several hours). Or, if it rises and you aren't ready for it, punch it down and let it rise some more. As long as you don't knead it any more, it will be ready when you are. If you knead it some more, just let it rest 15 minutes before rolling it out.

The fanciest pizza we had tonight was topped with fresh garlic, tomatoes, spinach leaves, feta cheese, and mozzarella cheese.

The others--eight in all--were delicious, too. Here are pictures of some of them.

I'm good--not great--at making pizza. But, for a better crust, I do recommend baking it on a pizza stone or ceramic tiles in your oven at a very high temperature, 450-475 degrees.

Here is what my well-used pizza stone looked like:

I use the past tense because this is what happened one day not too long ago:

They don't last forever. I'm going to try tiles next.

If you have any leftover pizza--we had two leftover slices tonight--eat it for lunch the next day! (Or breakfast ... )