Today I decided to make chicken, artichoke, spinach pizza. Your spinach can be fresh or frozen. I had frozen spinach so I cooked it in the microwave, then squeezed of the liquid out of it once it cooled down. I used marinated artichokes from a jar, but you can use just normal, non-marinated artichokes, that you can find in a can. Obviously your chicken needs to be cooked. Grilled tastes really good, but the wind was too strong for our BBQ grill to work very well, so I roasted it in the oven for 20 minutes or so, then sliced it into pieces once it was cool enough to handle. For the sauce I use ranch dressing with about a quarter of a teaspoon of garlic powder mixed in. You can use fresh or minced garlic if you want to.
I make my dough in my bread machine, but you can use what ever recipe you can find to make pizza dough. Or you could even buy frozen or fresh dough at the grocery store.
One tip that I can give you when you're preparing the crust, try not to use a rolling pin. Rolling pins squish all of the air bubbles out so you get a flat crust. If you have your dough in a ball, start poking it with your fingers, starting in the middle and working your way to the edges. If your dough is seeming like it doesn't want to stretch for you, let it sit on the counter for ten minutes or so, then try again. And it's ok if your crust isn't a perfect circle, it still tastes the same!
Every time I make pizza I have to make bread sticks too. I use the same crust, but butter it, sprinkle it with garlic salt, and top with cheese. Bake, and it's delicious!
I use a pizza stone to make my pizza, you don't have to, but I've had best results using a stone. But if you do use a pizza stone, make sure it's preheated, so you're building your pizza on a HOT stone. When I preheat my oven to make the pizza, I just put my stone in there to preheat too. Once the oven is preheated, the stone should be ready to go. If your stone is preheated, you won't get a soggy crust. But once you start building your pizza on your hot stone, you've got to be quick about it so your stone doesn't cool down.
This is one of my favorite pizzas. Another really yummy chicken pizza is chicken, broccoli, mushroom pizza. Use sour cream as your sauce and the put cheese, cooked chicken, broccoli, and mushrooms on it. It's wonderful!
