Homemade Pizza

While I admittedly still think greasy take-out pizza will always hold a special place in my heart, nothing truly beats the bubbling cheese of your very own homemade pizza peering out at you from the oven.

Making pizza is intensely satisfying. With each layer, a masterful piece of edible art comes into existence. While we have toyed with making the dough ourselves, the ease of supermarket fresh dough is convenient and reliable (whereas our homemade dough has certainly seen a series of disasters before). After we pull and stretch the ball of dough into final form, the endless mixes of toppings are ready to be placed.  While we attempt various experiments from time to time, three combos never cease from the rotation:

1. Chicken Wing: chicken cooked in hot wing sauce laid over a blue cheese sauce
2. Spinach Pesto: fresh baby spinach laid over a pesto sauce
3. Tomato and Ricotta: tomato with big globs of glorious ricotta dotting a layer of red sauce

These combinations really deserved to be credited towards Mark's mother, Shelley, who apparently avoided the greasy take-out every now and then by serving her delectable gourmet pizzas to her sons while they grew up.

Below is our Chicken Wing pizza.

Chicken Wing Pizza

Ingredients
About 1/2 lb skinless boneless chicken breast
About 3 Tb (or to taste) hot wing sauce
Your favorite blue cheese dressing (We like Marie's Chunky Blue Cheese)
About 1 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese
Fresh pizza dough

Equipment: Baking sheet (or pizza stone)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. Spray baking sheet with cooking spray lightly *very important for removal of pizza later! (Prepare pizza stone per instructions given with pizza stone)
3. Take ball of pizza dough and slowly stretch it out, rotating as you go. Continue until you have made a rectangle that fits the baking sheet and is about 1/2 inch thick (more or less depending on how thick you like your pizza)
   
4. Trim chicken breast of excess fat and cut into bite-sized chunks
5. Cook chicken chunks over medium high heat until cooked through
6. Turn off heat and add enough hot wing sauce to taste
7. Spread about 1/2 cup or so of blue cheese dressing on pizza dough, leaving about a 1/2 inch border
8. Sprinkle chicken evenly over pizza dough
9. Top with sprinkled mozzarella
10. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until dough is golden brown and cheese is bubbling