Wingless Buffalo Chicken Pizza

This is one of my favorites!!! It's a Rachel Ray Recipe.

• 3/4 pound chicken breast cutlets
• Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
• 2 teaspoons grill seasoning, (recommended: McCormick Montreal Seasoning) eyeball it
• 1 pizza dough, store bought or from your favorite pizzeria
• Cornmeal or flour, to handle dough
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce, eyeball it
• 2 to 3 tablespoons hot sauce, medium to spicy heat
• 1/2 cup tomato sauce
• 1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese, a few generous handfuls
• 1/2 cup blue cheese crumbles
• 3 scallions, thinly sliced

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Preheat grill pan to high.

Place chicken on a plate and drizzle extra-virgin olive oil over the chicken then season with grill seasoning. When grill is hot, add chicken and cook about 3 minutes on each side.

Stretch dough to form pizza using cornmeal or flour to help you handle it. If you let it rest and warm up a few minutes it will handle even easier. Set pizza on pizza pan to the side and clean board.

In a medium skillet over medium heat, melt butter and stir in Worcestershire, hot sauce, and tomato sauce.

Remove the chicken from grill and thinly slice it. Add chicken to sauce and coat. Cover the pizza dough with the saucy Buffalochicken, cheeses, and scallions. Bake 18 minutes or until crisp

Note: I only baked mine for 10 minutes and it almost over cooked so keep an eye on it!!!!! And 2 Tbsp. of Chalula Sauce makes it just spicy enough without roasting my face and Ruth would eat it. And that McCormick Montreal stuff is a new staple in my kitchen. I use it just about every time I make chicken now.

Very Helpful

This recipe is one of my new essentials.  It has less sugar, salt, and fat than store-bought spaghetti or pizza sauce, and it tastes much fresher and more tomato-ey.  Which I love.  (I was attempting to recreate Giordano's sauce, and I didn't quite succeed, but it's much closer than Prego or Ragu.)  Plus, it's cheaper, since I stock up on the Great Value brand tomatoes.

Pasta (or Pizza) Sauce

1 can (14 oz?--regular size) Italian style diced tomatoes (the kind with basil, oregano, and garlic)
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. basil
1 tsp. minced garlic (which I get from a bottle for this recipe, but you could mince your own.  Maybe 1 clove?)

Toss everything in the blender and blend away.  I use it just like this, most of the time, but you can also cook it in a flat saucepan (heat 1 tbsp. of olive oil in the pan first) until it thickens a little.  That makes the tomato flavor more rich and less fresh.

This is the best sauce for a margherita-style pizza when it's winter and the fresh tomatoes are not-so-fresh and from somewhere like Chile.  :)

Pointer: If you want to spruce up a pizza add Sundried Tomatoes to the Pizza Sauce. It's super good!!!!

Wingless Buffalo Chicken Pizza

This is a Rachel Ray recipe I tried tonight that went over well with Mike and our buddy Brian.

Wingless Buffalo Chicken Pizza

3/4 P. Chicken Breast Cutlets

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

2 tsp. Grill Seasoning, McCormick Montreal Seasoning is recommended

1 Pizza Dough (I used an instant Betty Crocker packet that was $0.79 and it worked great)

Corn Meal or Flour for handling dough

2 Tbsp. Butter

1 Tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce or eyeball it

2 to 3 Tbsp. Hot Sauce, med. to spicy (I used Cholula hot sauce)

1/3 C. Tomato Sauce (if you're not a tomato sauce lover I would take it down to 1/4 c.)

1 C. Shredded Monterrey Jack Cheese

1/2 C. Crumbled Blue Cheese (I bought a wedge and tried to crumble it. I would not recommend doing that)

3 Scallions thinly sliced

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Preheat Grill to high.

Drizzle chicken with EVO and sprinkle with grill seasoning. Add chicken to grill, cook about 3 minutes on each side.

Stretch dough to form pizza using corn meal or flour to handle. (if you let it rest and warm up it will be easier to handle) Place on pan.

In med. skillet over med. heat melt butter and stir in Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce and tomato sauce. Remove chicken from from grill and thinly slice. Add chicken to sauce and coat. Cover pizza dough with saucy chicken mix, cheeses and scallions. Bake 15 to 18 minutes or until crispy.

Stuffed Pizza Rolls

I found this recipe on Our Best Bites, and it is:
a) delicious
b) not very healthy
c) easy to get my kids to eat 
d) very customizable--fill with whatever you wish.

We had canadian bacon and pineapple, as that is our favorite, but any other combination would also be delicious.  Plus, I am loving the Classico Plum Tomato and Olive Oil marinara, so I warmed that up for dipping--YUM!  Served alongside a large green salad, it was almost a real meal.  :)
 
Stuffed Pizza Rolls
Recipe from OurBestBites

1 roll refrigerated pizza dough* (or make your own)
marinara/pizza sauce (click here to make your own)
2T grated Parmesan cheese
1 T olive oil or melted butter
1/2 t garlic powder
1  t dried Italian seasoning
mozzerella cheese, diced or grated
Pizza toppings of your choice: ie, ham and pineapple, pepperoni slices, sausage, etc.

*You can use regular pizza dough, or thin crust. 

Preheat oven to heat specified on pizza dough package.  Usually it's 400 degrees.  If you make your own dough, 400 is usually a good heat as well.

Unroll your pizza dough onto a lightly floured surface.  Pat or roll the dough so it's about 12" by 8".  You're going to want to cut it into 24 squares, so just eyeball it if you need to.  Use a pizza cutter to slice the dough into 24 squares (bet ya didn't see that one comin' did ya?) 

Place cheese and desired toppings on each square.  (Note that you're not putting the marinara sauce on the dough- it's for dipping after)  You guys are smart, right?  Just eyeball how much.  You just need to be able to enclose the toppings in the dough so keep that in mind.

When all of your dough squares have cheese and toppings on them, carefully lift up each square and wrap the dough around the toppings.  Pinch to make sure each ball is sealed shut and then place them seam side down in a lightly sprayed pie pan (or similar sized dish).

Brush the tops of the dough balls with olive oil or melted butter (I've used both and there's not much difference in result) and then sprinkle with the garlic and Italian seasoning and top with Parmesan cheese.  (In lieu of the Parmesan, garlic, and Italian seasoning you could  substitute this garlic bread seasoning.)

Cook them in the oven for about 15-20 minutes or until golden brown on top.  Keep an eye  on them! Doughs vary, so I'd check them after even 10 minutes.

Serve warm with warmed marinara sauce on the side for dipping.

Pizza Two Ways

(Sunday Strategy, continued)
Menu for Friday
Pizza Two Ways:
3 tbsp. evoo
Frozen Pizza Crusts
6 Roasted Tomato Halves, chopped
3/4 cup ricotta
1/2 cup shredded parmesan
salt/pepper
7 small red potatoes, thinly sliced
2 tbsp. rosemary
1/4-1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 475. Place crusts on two lightly oiled baking sheets and brush each with olive oil. Top one crust with tomatoes, collop with ricotta, then sprinkle with Parmesan; season with salt and pepper. Top second crust with an even layer of potatoes, sprinkle with rosemary, then drizzle with 1 tbsp. oil; season with salt and pepper. Bake pizzas for about 15-20 minutes, until done. Sprinkle tomato pizza with basil.

(I actually made one pizza, half tomato, half potato. Delicious!)