I’ve been away from the blog for a bit, as we were on vacation in Hawaii. My husband had meetings on the beautiful island of Oahu, so my daughter and I tagged along. We always said we wanted to take her to Hawaii before she graduated high school, which is coming up faster than I want it to. Kylie was so happy we made the decision to pull her out of school for a week to check this off her bucket list. She was able to visit and take a tour of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, which she absolutely loved.

We came home in the wee hours of the morning, Saturday, so Sunday was going to be a kick back day, doing not a whole heck of a lot. Kylie had homework to finish that she didn’t get to finish on the trip, Dennis and I had to pull the Halloween decorations down off the rafters in the garage and of course, it was the day of football. Dennis loves football and so does Kylie. It amazes me how much she knows about the game, but Kylie was quite an athlete herself and enjoys watching sporting evens on tv. However, yesterday, Kylie had so much to catch up on, she only got to watch some a game during dinner. I actually love when fall comes around because I love having football on as well, even if it’s just for background noise for me. Since it was an easy, kick back, football watching day I wanted to make homemade pizza for dinner. Pizza seems to really go with football (chili too, look for that in next Sunday’s blog post!).

I decided to make a BBQ chicken pizza. When I did my grocery shopping Saturday, I picked up pizza dough at Trader Joe’s. I love this dough, it is so easy to use. Let me just say, however, that I’ve tried to buy this late on a Sunday afternoon at Trader Joe’s and sometimes they are out of it. This is one reason I decided to get my grocery shopping out of the way Saturday.

I put the dough out on a breadboard with a little flour and let it rise for 20 minutes. As it was rising, I got my toppings together. For my BBQ chicken pizza, I decided to add chopped orange bell pepper, sliced jalapeño, sliced red onion and chopped cilantro for a topping after the pizza was cooked. Some of you may think that a red pepper or green pepper would be the pepper you’d want to use on a BBQ chicken pizza, but I am one for using a variation of colors when I’m preparing a dish. Since I used a red onion, I decided to use the orange bell pepper instead and since I added sliced jalapeños, which are green, I didn’t want green peppers.

I used a half cup of Trader Joe’s barbeque sauce as my sauce and I used chicken that is pre-cooked and already cut into strips. It’s called “Just Chicken.” I also used a mix of smoked gouda cheese and mozzarella.

I pre-bake my crust for about 10 minutes to make sure the crust is crispy enough for me. I bought a couple of pizza pans with little holes throughout from my local Home Goods store. This is the one thing that has helped me achieve that crispy crust I enjoy. I don’t know why I didn’t get these pans sooner!

This pizza tasted as good as it looked when I pulled it out of the oven. My husband loved it and in fact, took the leftovers for lunch today. I always love when he takes the leftovers for lunch because then I know they aren’t going to waste.

Ingredients

• 1 refrigerated pizza dough (I use Trader Joe’s)

• 1/2 cup chicken breast strips, cut in small pieces (about 1/2 inch)

• 1/2 cup barbeque sauce

• 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced

• 1 orange bell pepper, chopped

• 2 jalapeños, sliced (seeds removed if you don’t want it too spicy)

• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro

• 3/4 cup smoked gouda cheese, shredded

• 1/4 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Lay pizza dough on a cutting board on top of an 1/8 cup of flour. I lightly coat the dough in the flour on both sides and let rise for 20 minutes.

While the pizza dough is rising, get your toppings  ready. Shred your smoked gouda on a box shredder and do the same with the mozzarella, or you can buy the mozzarella already shredded. Chop the bell pepper and cilantro and set aside. Slice the red onion thinly and also slice the jalapeños. Cut the chicken into bite size pieces.

Once the dough has risen, roll it out with a rolling pin to fit your pizza pan. I roll it a bit and then work it with my fingers. Place the pizza dough in the preheated 425 degree oven for 10 minutes.

Pour your barbeque sauce over the partially baked dough and start building your pizza. Start with the cheese, then add toppings. After all toppings are added, I drizzled a small amount of barbeque sauce over the toppings and then added a sprinkling more of the gouda cheese.

Place in the oven, turn the temperature down to 400 degrees and bake until cheese has melted. Enjoy!

Until next time, Kris