Saturday, June 6, 2015

Saturday Eats - Landing Party Pizza

I had grand plans for a lot of cooking this weekend, some time in the kitchen after being away from home a month with maybe even a three course meal in there.

 The week started so well, but  I knew I shouldn't have worn the red shirt. (For those of you who grew up on a desert island and never watched Star Trek, the Red Shirt is the uniform of choice for the phaser-cannon fodder taken out quickly in the plot line to alert viewers to danger.)

Yes, I was part of landing party Kirk, Spock, Dr. McCoy and the Dead Guy, better known as Ensign Ricky in the red shirt. I started out thinking I was going to save the planet and I ended up as the smoking boots behind the giant paper mache boulder.

So after what turned out to be a very busy week, I really didn't feel like doing anything fancy for lunch on Saturday.

OK, what can I make without making a run to the store?  I have leftover cooked chicken,  the usual veggies, flour, cheese, some jarred and canned things.  Pizza!! But not your traditional pizza.  White, not red pizza, with creamy garlic sauce and chicken and fresh veggies, herbs and two kinds of cheese. I've made it without the chicken and it's just as good.
It starts with homemade easy pizza dough. (or you can buy yours, some store bought ones are excellent and some store bought ones can double as frisbees for the dog).  I went for homemade because I'm a cheapskate feeling gourmet.

Once the dough was assembled, it was topped with garlic sauce (recipe below), leftover baked chicken, olives, chopped sweet onion, a jar of sun dried tomatoes (drained), crushed red pepper and some Italian seasoning, then sprinkled with a couple of handfuls of mozzarella and cheddar. 

After a a few days of cheese sandwiches and leftover pasta and salad this was heaven and it made enough to feed 2 or 3 very hungry people.
Pizza Dough 
Ingredients:

2 and 1/4 teaspoons of  traditional rise yeast
1 teaspoon of organic sugar
1 cup of warm water (110 degrees - use a thermometer - it really matters!)
2 and 1/2 cups of flour
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 teaspoon of salt

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. In bread bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in the warm water. Let it stand, out of any drafts, until creamy - about 10 minutes.
2. Stir in the salt, oil and flour. add the flour a bit at a time. stir the dough until smooth and elastic-y. let it rest for 5 minutes.
3. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and pat and roll out with your hands and then use a rolling pin. once desired thickness is achieved.  Place dough on to a pizza pan and top with whatever toppings you like. Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes (keep your eye on it at about 12 mins) and remove when pizza is golden brown. Let the pizza sit for 5 minutes before cutting into it (this is the Hardest step!)
Garlic Sauce (this is so worth the time to make and is excellent with pasta too)
Peel six cloves of roasted garlic and mince (2 Tablespoons of the jarred minced garlic). Saute in 1 Tablespoon butter  in a sauce pan for a couple of minutes on medium heat.  Whisk in:
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup half and half or whipping cream 
A  Tablespoon or two of cream cheese (more will make the sauce thicker)
Reduce heat to medium low.  Sift 2 Tablespoons flour over milk mixture, whisking constantly (to avoid lumps).  Add in two pinches of ground thyme and one of ground black pepper and a dash of garlic salt, and continue to gently whisk.  When stating to thicken, remove from heat and add 1/4 cup grated fresh Parmesan and stir until cheese is melted.

Spoon sauce on crust, top with toppings and bake as directed above.

Beam me up some pizza Mom!

Update:  Mom made bar cookies.  Cream Cheese with Candy Bar Chunks!

I'm sorry but my phaser is set to "FULL".

9 comments:

  1. Hari OM
    ...I'll share with Abby, she can have the chook, I'll nom the veggies!!! (OOhhhh,,,, thanks for owning up to ST... it is one of my lifetime faves (all 'flavours'!). YAM xx

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  2. That sounds really yummy. We might have to give that a try. It also looks really yummy.Now I am hungrey for Pizza. Have a great week end.

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  3. OMD OMD WHERE to BEGIN??????? Our mom just Roasted 4 POUNDS of Garlic the other day...
    That woman can put Roasted Garlic on Chocolate Cake and think it is Fabulous... She is DROOLING over the Garlic SAUCE Recipe...
    OMD and guess WHAT.... the Old Hag is a MAJOR MAJOR (nearly a KIPtin) Lover of ANYTHINGY STAR TREK!!! She is trying to HUG the Lap Top ... over all the Star Trek stuffs you have going here.
    and THEN.... we just came from Our Comments and are STILL Rolling on the FLOOR over the Internet EXPLODER comment... THAT is HYSTERICAL. (We use Chrome fur Blogging) and Internet EXPLODER fur Email...

    SO ABBY.... did YOU get some Pizza BONES???

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  4. While you're beaming, beam us some out west too!

    Your Pals,

    Murphy & Stanley

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  5. Frankie - I did! Mom got some energy back and now she's making Milky Way Cheesecake bites (it's like a shortbread cookie topped with chopped MW"s then with a cream cheese layer poured over the top and baked until it's all soft and gooey.

    But I like Pizza Bones better.

    Marg - it's easy if you you a premade crust.

    Yamini - Mom LOVEs Star Trek! I keep asking for Tribbles to replace all my de-squeeked stuffies but Mom said no.

    Abby Lab

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  6. Don't let this post go away. When I have more time, I want to come back and copy and paste it and try sometime. I'm amazed that you can come up with something this great with little effort and without running to the store.

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  7. Sherry. My Mom grew up in the Depression. She never formally taught me how to cook, she was sick much of my childhood, fighting two separate cancers, but I learned from watching. She never wasted ANYTHING and got quite creative.
    LB

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  8. Hey Abby!
    Wow, my Mom's going all Squeeeeee because she is a major Trek fan too! Watches them all the time and is bonkers for the cast in the newest movies. Me, I'm a major Pizza Bones fan. Forget the Bones in Star Trek, I want pizza bones and I'm glad to see you got some too. :)
    BTW: Those bars are making Mom drool all over my Mr. Dell. ahem.
    Grr and Woof,
    Sarge, Police Commish

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