Garlic Chicken Pizza

My mom is a genius. I called her last week with a dilemma: What to make for some friends. Her response: Pizza. Simple. Everyone loves pizza. On inspiration from the Pizza Shoppe in Benson I went for garlic chicken--also I love garlic. But when I came home to make this pizza Saturday, I discovered the garlic was MIA. Goldilocks had gone through my apartment and rearranged everything in anticipation of our house party--Megan declares it looks better. I admit, some tweaks were improvements. However, those improvements do not include the missing garlic (which I blame on this person without any real proof) and hiding our doorbell in one of the cupboards. I digress. The pizza was great, except for the crust. I bought it freshly made at the Rotella's factory down the street from my office (garlic bread day is the best!). But the crust didn't come with directions, so the first time I made it I couldn't get it to stretch flat enough and then it didn't cook through. The second time was better, though if I do it again I'll set the oven on the highest temp. We scarfed down some of the pizza right before our party started. To clean up, Eric and I just threw it back in the cooled oven and forgot about it until the next day. I live on the wild side when it comes to food, but I drew the line with chicken that had been sitting out all night. Had to throw it away. Garlic-Chicken Pizza: 2 tablespoons butter 2 cloves garlic, minced 2 green onions, finely diced 1 teaspoon dried basil salt and pepper 1 chicken breast 2 roma tomatoes, diced 2 cremini mushrooms, sliced pizza dough parmasan cheese Pre-heat the oven to 500. In a small sauce pan, melt the butter and add the garlic, onions, basil, salt and pepper. Sautee until garlic and onion are barely browned. Remove from heat and allow to cool for a couple minutes. Meanwhile, place chicken breast in a skillet and cover with water. On stovetop, bring water to boil and then reduce to simmer. Simmer until chicken is cooked through and no longer pink, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat, allow to cool for a few minutes. Once cooled, tear chicken into bite-sized pieces. While the butter is cooling, work on the pizza dough. Grease a baking sheet and work dough gently so that the dough is spread to an even thickness throughout. Go back to the butter. In a small mixing bowl, stir together butter mixture and ricotta cheese, adding more salt and pepper to taste if necessary. Spread cheese mixture over the flattened dough. Top pizza with chicken, tomatoes and mushrooms. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until crust is browned and crispy and cooked through.

Thank Goodness for Chef Boyardee Pizza

You're going to see this week's postings and think my mom lives for cooking. Don't believe it. Not for a second. I should elaborate before I am banished from her kitchen (that will never happen--I'm the only one who will eat indiscriminately). Would you love cooking if you worked from 6 a.m. until 3 in the afternoon (or so), came home to kids probably running around pretending they weren't watching TV while you were gone and have them hover over the stove asking "What's for dinner?" in the whiniest tone? And then, once you tell them it's beef stroganoff or stew, they mope and say, "Steeewwww?" and you have to threaten taking away that evening's episode of Cheers or I Love Lucy to get them to finish their meal. This has been happening for nearly 25 years people. Give this woman a break!

She's learned a few tricks over the years, 1.) never introduce something new on a Monday and 2.) stick with your standbys. One of these standbys is what is viewed here: Chef Boyardee pizza. Pretty simple, you buy the box, follow the directions, embellish with extra vegetables, mushrooms, pepperoni and extra cheese. (I believe Mom uses provelone, mozarella and grated parmasan.) One very important trick she learned is to make two pizzas: one for adults and one for kids. I am proud to say that I now take from the adult pizza.

We had this pizza for birthday parties or on Fridays (when she was too tired to care about serving us a plate of steamed vegetables) or, as in this case, Christmas Eve (no turkey here). She would dole out the slices (I always picked one with the most parmasan) and set a bowl of baby carrots on the table. On these nights, we even would get to drink soda with dinner (sometimes).

I think Chef Boyardee's slogan fits this situation pretty well. And don't you want to come over to my mom's for dinner someday?