BBQ Chicken Flatbread Pizzas with Cherries and Corn

I was kind of dreading Father’s Day this year. All of the first holidays and events without him are hard. But the impending punch in the gut of Father’s Day—all of the gift guides in my inbox, the grilling recipes for dad online, the Father’s Day golf/BBQ/fishing/woodworking/drinking themed everything everywhere—it had me in a major funk these last few weeks. Luckily we celebrated in the most amazing way possible, which really helped me (and my sister and mom) get through the day. Rather than having a somber memorial last summer, which he would have hated, we waited until last weekend, and had a big blow-out celebration of life. He loved being a dad, and he loved summer solstice, so there was no better time to raise a glass and toast an awesome man, who lived life to the fullest.

Buffalo Chicken Pizza

ONE WEEK! ONE WEEK! 

One week until my Hawks play in the SUPER BOWL! Here in Seattle, we're in full-on BEAST MODE. 

I'll be watching the big game at the bar where I watched our last two winning games, in our lucky booth. It's only weird if it doesn't work, right? So I'm getting my football food on leading up to the game. I have a few Super Bowl recipes for you this week, because as you know, one of the best things about football is the food! 

The first recipe I have for you is one of my favorite things ever: buffalo. chicken. pizza. 

You can't have a football game without saucy, spicy chicken wings, right? Well, this pizza has all the gooey, spicy, sweet, chickeny goodness of wings, but without the pesky bones… and with a whole lot of cheese! I like to keep it simple: dough, saucy chicken, cheese. Bake it until bubbly, then drizzle on blue cheese dressing and celery leaves. Get it in your mouth. 

Beast Mode Seahawk-Wing Pizza (AKA: Buffalo Chicken Pizza)

Makes two 12-inch thin crust pizzas

Shredded Buffalo Chicken

3 lbs chicken breasts (about 4 breasts), diced large

2 teaspoons cayenne 

salt & pepper

11 tablespoons butter

1 cup Franks Red Hot sauce

1/4 cup brown sugar

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place chicken in a large baking dish (i.e.: 13x9 pirex), and sprinkle with cayenne, and a large pinch of salt and pepper. Bake for 30 minutes.

While chicken is cooking, melt butter, and whisk together with hot sauce and brown sugar. After chicken has baked for 30 minutes, pull out dish, and pour on sauce. Put back in oven, and bake an additional 15 minutes. Remove and let cool for 10-15 minutes.

To shred, either use two forks, a food processor, or my favorite new trick (from this blog): put chicken and sauce in stand mixer with paddle attachment, and mix on low until chicken is shredded. GENIUS.

Pizzas

1 recipe pizza dough (this is the recipe I use--split the one recipe into two balls/two pizzas)

Cornmeal for pan or peel

1 recipe shredded buffalo chicken, above

3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

1/2 cup blue cheese dressing

Leaves from 2 bunches of celery, chopped

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. If using pizza stone, preheat in oven.

Turn dough ball (half of recipe) out onto a lightly floured surface and pat or roll into a round the size of your pizza stone or baking sheet (potentially rectangle, if using cookie sheet). Transfer crust to a lightly greased pizza pan or pizza peel (or flexible cutting board, which is what I use) dusted with cornmeal. 

Spread with half of chicken mixture, then top with half of cheese. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden brown and crispy around the edges. Cool for 5 minutes, then top with blue cheese dressing (I add to a sandwich bag, and cut the corner so I can drizzle) and celery leaves. 

Repeat with remaining ingredients for second pizza. 

Food Fight: Pizza Showdown

It started with some trash-talking…as all good dinner parties do. But this dinner party, my friends, wasn’t your average white linen and good manners type of dinner party. It was a showdown. Or a throwdown (minus Bobby Flay). It was the best kind of food fight. And the subject? Pizza!

V and her boyfriend Ben (our only friend with a house instead of an apartment, and a professional-style gas stove…swoon) invited us over for the Second Annual Pizza Showdown. Last year’s showdown started out as a friendly pizza collaboration, and ended in voting and bribing, with Adrienne being named the winner. I guess we’re a competitive bunch. This year, we skipped the niceties, and went straight for the jugular.

Ben: “I'm going to make a pizza that calls all your pizzas Susie.”
V: “Who wants to be on the "my pizza kills ben's pizza" team?”
Ben: “Make sure to bring name tags for your pizza—you can go ahead and write "Susie" on them in advance.”
Adrienne: “Just remember who won last year…”

With that kind of pressure, I decided I had bring out the big guns. Evan and I brainstormed for days, trying to come up with a winning pizza topping combination. We threw out ideas like Sriracha and chicken, or sundried tomatoes, arugula, and Salumi salami. He wanted big and meaty, I wanted fresh and full of veggies. Our team was breaking at the seams, before the competition even began. When the time came to get supplies, Evan was nowhere to be found…so I picked out the toppings I wanted, asparagus and arugula, and completely disregarded his meat-full wishes. No one said competition is pretty. It is, however, delicious.

We gathered in Ben’s big grown-up kitchen, threw out some fightin’ words, drank wine, danced and sang, and whipped out some amazing, delicious pizzas. And, low and behold, my last minute topping decision won the contest; with Adrienne coming in at a close second (that girl knows how to make a classic pizza).

The Pies:
Amber: The green pie—shaved asparagus with fontina, pine nuts, shaved parmesan, and fresh lemon-kissed arugula
Adrienne: The classic—mushrooms, pepperoni, and olives
V: The spicy Pie—tandoori chicken with fresh cilantro
Ben: The big and meaty—sausage, grilled onions, and pepperoncini
Tasha: The simple but always delicious margherita—tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella
Bree: Tropical with a Twist—pineapple, Canadian bacon, and smoked Gouda
Jim: The forager—a pizza overflowing with sautéed mushrooms
Evan, Bobby, and Ewan: an inappropriately shaped pizza that we will not name on this blog

Go ahead, Ben, just try to call this pizza Susie.

Shaved Asparagus Pizza
(The dough recipe below makes six 6-ounce pizza crusts—my toppings will cover two of them)

Your favorite pizza dough or “The Best Pizza Dough Ever” from 101 Cookbooks
1 bunch asparagus, shaved lengthwise with a vegetable peeler (try it, its fun!)
1 clove garlic, minced
Sea salt
Olive oil
Pine nuts
½ -2 cups grated fontina
¼ cup grated parmesan
Shaved parmesan
A large bowl full of fresh arugula tossed with fresh lemon juice, a drizzle of olive oil, a splash of vinegar, and salt and pepper—to taste

Prepare your dough according to directions, stretch it, and lay it on a pizza peel or pan coated with cornmeal. Bush a light amount of olive oil on the dough, sprinkle on garlic and sea salt. Top with grated fontina and parm, and a hearty amount of asparagus, you really want to mound the asparagus on, because it will baked down. Sprinkle on pinenuts. Bake pizza according to directions for the dough—the bottom should be slightly crispy and golden, and the asparagus should be just browning around the loose edges. Remove the pizza from the oven and transfer to a cutting board. Before serving, top with arugula and shaved parm, and another spritz of lemon if needed.

Just Call Me April O'Neil

Lately I’ve been eating so much pizza that I feel like I should be saying “cowabunga dude,” wielding nunchucks, and living in a sewer. Or at least donning a sweet trench coat and hangin’ with the heroes in a half-shell, like the super awesome, always beautiful, friend to the good guys: April O’Neil. I was sort of like April O’Neil when I was kid… and by that I mean I hung out with the Ninja Turtles. I really did… Michelangelo was my friend—imaginary, you may say, but that’s subjective—and he and I spent hours playing and eating pizza. He was always invited over when we had pizza for dinner. I don’t see my ol’ pal Michelangelo much these days, but if I did, I can guarantee I’d be seeing a lot of him this week. Completely by chance, I had pizza for dinner Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday—all at different locations—and I just had pizza for lunch today.

LZ and I went to Pizzeria Napoletana, which is basically a wood-fire oven tucked into the corner of the Café Vita coffee shop a few blocks from the office. The barista/pizza maven told us that the salami pizza was actually pepperoni…and that the pepperoni rounds were the most savory, delicious little pepperoni rounds ever. She wasn’t lyin’. They really were the most savory, delicious little pepperoni rounds ever. All curled up and crispy around the edges, little cups filled with spicy pepperoni grease…

I think Mikey and the crew would be proud.

Big Pizza Love

About a year ago, my BFF from high school, LB, moved to Seattle from Indiana (where she was a champion javelin thrower at Purdue University, attending the Olympic Trials for Beijing). One thing we always had in common, even while we were miles apart during college was our (stellar) taste in movies and TV. When LB moved to Seattle, I finally had a new viewing-party buddy! We got together with Evan and Anthony for Season 3 of Dexter. I introduced her to one of Evan and my favorites, Big Love, and she quickly blew through seasons 1 and 2. She introduced me to Nip Tuck, which Evan and I then watched religiously, from seasons 1-4, over about a 2 month span. When we were finally caught up on each other’s favorite shows, we decided to join forces once again, for season 3 of Big Love. Evan, LB, and I get together once a week to see what Bill Hendrickson and his three wives are up to (that's right, three wives...it's an HBO drama about an everyday polygamist!)

For the season finale this week (it actually ended a few months ago, but we're behind), we gathered in front of the big screen with plates full of roasted vegetable pizza!

Earlier in the week Evan's mom, Mary Ellen, gave me her garden's first zucchini, as well as a handful of the cutest homegrown fingerling potatoes ever. Given that these were the first fruits of her labor, I wanted to do something special with them, and Big Love night seemed like the right occasion. The night before the big finale, I roasted the potatoes and zucchini with cooking radishes, red onion, red bell pepper, garlic, basil, olive oil, and balsamic, and let them cool in the fridge over night. When it was time to assemble the pizza, I haphazardly spun my Trader Joe's whole wheat pizza dough into a lovely crust, brushed with olive oil, topped with the roasted veggies, and covered with crumbled feta and grated parm. After about 15 minutes, our pizza was ready, and our show was starting.

The veggies were caramelie, full of flavor, and delicious. Paired with the briny, tangy feta, and hearty whole wheat crust, the pizza was just what we needed to get us through Bill's drama with wife #1 Barb, wife #2 Nikki, and wife #3 Margine, 'the prophet' Roman's unlawful behavior on the compound, Albie's homemade bomb experiment, and the narrow escape of the infamous Green clan. Ahh, Big Love. So much delicious drama. Can't wait to see what our next show will be cooking up...

Roasted Veggies
These are great on a pizza, tossed with pasta, as a side or topping with meat, or just on their own! Feel free to add your favorite veggies and see how it turns out!

1 medium-large zucchini- cut in thick chunks
1 medium-large red onion- cut in wedges and separated
2 cooking radishes (these are way bigger than the little dinner salad radishes, but you could also try a handful of those, or other root veggies like turnips!)- cit in large chunks
8-10 fingerling potatoes (or 2-5 reds, 1-2 yukons, sweet potatoes, etc)- cut into thick slices or chunks
1 red bell pepper, cut in chunks
4-5 garlic cloves- peeled and cut in half
4-5 basil leaves, torn
salt & pepper to taste
1/4th cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 425. Mix ingredients in large bowl until veggies are well coated, if you need to add more olive oil, do it. Pour mixture (including extra oil in bowl) into greased roasting pan or baking sheet (I used the latter). Roast until veggies are golden and caramelized- about 30 to 40 minutes, longer if needed. Enjoy!