Nikol’s Chicken Pesto Pizza<\/strong><\/p>\nPrep time:
30 minutes<\/p>\n
Cook time:
45 minutes (depends on how crunchy you want your crust and whether or not you are a crust pre-baker like I am)<\/p>\n
Ingredients:
Pesto – homemade or store bought, just to your taste; it\u2019s a little strong for me, so I do a thin layer
Pizza crust – homemade or store bought
Chicken breast – about 1\/2 cup
Flour – 1\/4 cup to roll out the dough
Spinach – 1\/2 cup
Peppers chopped up – 1\/4 cup
Mushrooms – 1\/4 cup
White onion – 1\/4 cup
Crushed red chili pepper – as much as you can handle<\/p>\n
![\"IMG](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_0072.JPG\")
<\/p>\n
To prep I start by letting my pizza crust come to room temperature (it is much easier to work with that way), then I preheat my oven and my pizza stone. The benefit of a pizza stone is that once it heats up, it will hold heat better than a cookie sheet, giving you a nicer bottom on your crust. I sliced up all of my vegetables beforehand and set them aside, and as I have a tendency to cut myself, this can take me a while. I like to saut\u00e9 the onions until they are soft, but that it\u2019s not necessary; I just don’t enjoy a raw onion at all.
Because my chicken is frozen, I have to also get that ready. I don’t thaw my frozen chicken; I just heat a pan with some olive oil and throw my tenders in\u2014usually about 6. To cook the chicken throughout, it takes me about 20 minutes, and while I’m doing that I have a glass of red wine, maybe 2, depending on how work went that day \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
Once my oven is hot (This is such a bad idea during this crazy heat wave. I would’ve waited until it cooled down, but my apartment stays hot for hours), and my chicken is cooked, I am pizza-ready. I spread the flour out on my counter top and roll my dough in it, sometimes I like to use my hands, but today I decided to use a roller, so I also put flour on that, making sure it wouldn’t stick to the dough. Once it\u2019s to the size and shape that I like, I use a towel to pull out my pizza stone. I put the crust on it, and then place just the crust back in the oven for 5 – 10 minutes. After a few mishaps, I’ve decided that doing this gives me less of a wet pizza. I prefer for the sauce to not soak into my crust, but this step is up to you. Once it\u2019s done baking, there are usually air bubbles, and I just pop those with a knife.<\/p>\n
Once my dough is on the counter, then I can start to place my toppings, but this is really up to you. I like my pizza like my burritos: stuffed and hard to eat because of all of the toppings. I start with the pesto, then the cheese and then go crazy with veggies and chicken. I save the seasoning for the end and voila! Pizza! Don\u2019t eat it yet though; it\u2019s time to bake!<\/p>\n
After it\u2019s all set and just as crispy as you would like it, slice it up and eat it all.<\/p>\n
![\"IMG](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_0074.JPG\")
<\/p>\n
Enjoy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
![\"IMG](\"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_0074.JPG\")
<\/p>\n
This happens pretty regularly: whenever I invite a girlfriend over for movies and a homemade meal, I always lean towards pizza. Pizza? What? Does that sound boring to you? Well, I love love love it! The best I’ve made so far has had to be the buffalo chicken pizza on whole wheat crust, but tonight I decided to make something a little different: chicken pesto pizza topped with lots of veggies and mozzarella.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":69469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-4311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4311"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=4311"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"IMG](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_0069.JPG\")
This happens pretty regularly: whenever I invite a girlfriend over for movies and a homemade meal, I always lean towards pizza. Pizza? What? Does that sound boring to you? Well, I love love love it! You have so many choices. The best I’ve made so far has had to be the buffalo chicken pizza on whole wheat crust, but tonight I decided to make something a little different: chicken pesto pizza topped with lots of veggies and mozzarella. Another of the hundred things I love about pizza is how you can use whatever you have in your fridge, and it\u2019ll probably taste amazing.<\/p>\n