Now that it’s summertime, KC is constantly asking to have barbeque for dinner.  The only issue with this, is that we live in 400 square feet with no outdoor space, and thus, have no barbeque or barbeque space.  Just a minor issue.  As a compromise to the constant, “Can we have ribs tonight?” question, I made this pizza last night:

I had never made barbeque chicken pizza before, but I’d bought some barbeque sauce at TJ’s over the weekend and figured, why not?  We eat pizza every night anyway (clearly), so I thought this might be a nice switch from the usual things I throw on my dough.

*Note: This is the last pizza post for awhile, so if you hate pizza, or just have something against things covered in cheese, have no fear.  All kinds of wedding posts coming up next week, so cool your jets, pizza haters.

I stretched pizza dough while KC did a mass of dishes last night (I think I got the better end of that bargain, don’t you?).  It got slathered with barbeque sauce.

While it was blind-baking, I rounded up the rest of the ingredients.  (Sadly, this pizza took a little more prep than the previous night’s Margherita pizza, so no wine was had.  I’m still sad about it.)

I diced the chicken (doesn’t that kind of sound like a dance move?  No?), sliced onions, grated cheese, chopped cilantro, and then like clockwork, the pizza was done blind-baking.  It’s like I planned it.  Pat on the back, me. (←By the way, totally my inner monologue last night.)

So, fun fact: barbeque sauce looks hideous on a blind-baked pizza crust.  I thought about taking a picture to show you what it looked like; but considering it looked a bit like a crime scene, I decided against it.  If any of y’all make this pizza, just know that that step ain’t pretty.  True story.

On went the cheese, chicken and onions.

Back into the oven for a few, then voila: pizza in yo’ face.

I let it rest, threw on the chopped cilantro, and then KC and I proceeded to stuff our faces while watching So You Think You Can Dance.  Nothing I love more than watching people exercise real hard while I shove food in my face, especially while making comments like, “Wow, that looks really hard.  Pass me that end slice.”

Recipe

• 1 lb pizza dough
• Olive oil for brushing (optional)
• Barbeque sauce of your choice (I used TJ’s Bold and Smoky or something…)
• Mozzarella and cheddar cheese (you could just use mozz here, if you wanted)
• 1 large chicken breast, cooked and chopped
• 1/2 small red onion, sliced thin
• Handful of cilantro, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 475°F
2. Place your dough on a floured board and stretch into your desired shape (mine was so close to being a rectangle last night, then like 2 of the corners pulled in.  So rude.)  Press into a greased pan and brush with olive oil.
3. Cover dough with a thin layer of barbeque sauce.  Make sure your man smells that barbeque goodness so he knows you’re doing this for him.
4. Blind-bake the dough for 10 minutes.
5. Chop the chicken, onions, and cilantro (set cilantro aside separately).  Grate the cheese (I used about 2/3 block of mozz, 1/3 block of cheddar).
6. When the pizza is done blind-baking, pull it out (marvel at how awful it looks), cover with the cheese and top with chicken and onions.  Bake another 10 minutes.
7. Pull out pizza when crust is browned and cheese is melted throughout.  Transfer pizza to a large cutting board, sprinkle with chopped cilantro and let sit for 5 minutes.
8. Slice that thing up, turn on an exercise show and get to work.

A little note: Avocado would probably be good on this, if you’re looking to fancy it up a bit.  I wanted to put sliced peaches on it last night and basically got verbally b@#$%-slapped by KC over it.  Ok, really he just said no peaches, but his eyes were like, “How dare you even say that to me…” 

Point taken.