We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Blog Post

with some food made by my very own younger brother!  To my knowledge, he hasn't cooked since that day I was 8 and he was 6 and we made Mac & Cheese.  All by ourselves.  And then promptly ruined it by adding in orange juice (color matching! these kids are geniuses!).  I swore off Mac & Cheese for a long time after that, and haven't made it since.  Anyway, back to the food we did make.

Pizza!!! Now, Sally and I have made pizza before.  Veggie pizza, meat lovers pizza, thin-crust and everything in between, we've made it.  It's one of the foods we survived on in college - easy to make healthy, quick to freeze, great for dinner parties.  Pre-make the crust, set out the ingredients, everyone adds what they like and into the oven they go.  So when my little brother said he wanted to make pizza, I agreed to lend a hand to the stranger in the kitchen.  But the minute a store-bought crust was brought up, I was all "No way, you're first kitchen endeavor is going to be pure and right and without processed junk."

And thus, it was me, kneading the dough for 6 minutes.  Also, I would recommend checking up on several other sources before attempting this version of pizza crust, because either 'someone' forgot to add a 1/2 cup of flour or the recipe needs an extra 1/2 cup of flour, because that's about how much I ended up adding while kneading.

BBQ Chicken Pizza
adapted from the Pioneer Woman's recipe here
Ingredients
1 prepared pizza crust*
1 whole boneless, skinless chicken breast
½ cup barbecue sauce
8 oz. fresh mozzarella cheese, shredded
½ whole red onion, thinly sliced
chopped cilantro, to taste
olive oil
salt
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. Place chicken in an ovenproof dish. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until chicken is done. Remove from oven and cut into a fine dice. Pour BBQ sauce on top of chicken and toss. Set aside.
3. Increase oven temperature to 500 degrees.
4. Roll/stretch out one pizza crust. Lay it on a sheet pan drizzled with olive oil. Drizzle a little olive oil on the crust, then sprinkle on a little salt.
5. Spoon a couple of tablespoons of extra BBQ sauce on the crust and spread it evenly. Top sauce with the mozzarella. Sprinkle on the diced chicken and thinly sliced red onion.
6. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, or until crust is golden brown and toppings are bubbly.
7. Remove from the oven and sprinkle on plenty of chopped cilantro. Cut into squares and serve immediately. Repeat with other crust and other ingredients, or save for another time.

Pizza Dough Recipe

from The Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook (enough for 2 pizzas)
2 ½ to 3 cups AP flour
1 package active dry yeast
½ tsp salt
1 cup warm water (120F to 130F)
2 Tbs olive oil
In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 ¼ cups of the flour, the yeast, and salt; add warm water and oil. Beat with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes. Using a wooden spoon, stir in as much of the remaining flour as you can.  Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead in enough remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough that is smooth and elastic (6 to 8 minutes total). Divide dough in half. Cover; let rest for 10 minutes.