On any given night, if you ask my kids what they want for dinner, the answer is usually "Pizza!" My usual response
is, "We'll see." (When did I turn into
my mom?) On Friday nights, however, pizza is the perfect way for all of us to end the workweek. There's no whining,
no complaining and it's just plain fun.
We have an amazing specialty pizza place close to home that has cool grown-up toppings like spinach, chicken,
arugula, brie and pears. It's amazing, but
also a little expensive. I saw this recipe for
Garlic Chicken Pizza on Landolakes.com
and it looked so easy: only six ingredients and I had most of them already. Why not give it a try?
We've also turned Fridays into family game night, so I needed something simple enough that I could make it and play
a championship round of Go Fish at the
same time. This pizza is perfect.
I picked up Garlic & Herb Sauté Express® Sauté Starter in the butter section of the grocery store and
grabbed a pre-made pizza crust while I
was there. I had the rest of the ingredients already.
Heat the oven to 450°F. Then cut up 1/2 pound of boneless skinless chicken breasts into small pieces. Melt the Sauté
Express® square in a
10-inch nonstick skillet over medium-low heat until it sizzles.
Next, add chicken to the skillet. It's important to keep the heat on medium-low, so there is liquid left over in the
pan to brush onto the pizza crust. If
the heat gets turned up too high, the juices will evaporate and you won't have enough to adequately brush on your
pizza crust.
While the Sauté Express® square melts, I can even hold my cards for a game of Go Fish! There tends to be
some serious competition in my house
over card games! The winner of round one usually gets the first slice of pizza and the one in last place does the
dishes. The pressure is on... I will not be
doing dishes tonight!
Stir until the chicken is done and fully coated. It will smell fantastic. It is hard to believe it is so simple!
While the chicken is cooking, it's a great
time to chop 1/2 cup spinach like this...
Once the chicken is done, remove it from the heat. I separated the chicken to one side and tilted the pan to have a
better angle to use the leftover sauce
in the pan.
Brush the liquid from the pan over the prepared thin pizza crust. We have made our own pizza dough in the past, but
on a Friday night, it is so quick and
easy to use the prepared pizza crust. We took a quick time-out on the card game.
Next, spread the spinach evenly on the pizza. The recipe calls for just a 1/2 cup, but I decided to add a little
more. The pizza was great! My card sharks
were concerned that I was making more of a salad than a pizza, but the spinach cooks down perfectly.
The cooked chicken is added next...
After that I added the cheeses. I layered the ingredients a bit to make sure that the cheeses, spinach and chicken
were spread evenly throughout.
When my kids help me cook cook, I really couldn't tell you how much cheese makes it onto the pizza. You know: "Some
for the pizza, and some for me!" I try
to set out the amount of cheddar cheese that needs to go on the pizza, but it seems to get eaten, so then I add more
cheese. So, long story short, I'm
pretty sure that 1/4 cup of cheddar made it on the pizza, but maybe just a little more. You can never have enough
cheese on a pizza right?
We are almost ready for the pizza to go in the oven! Go Fish is getting a little intense here....
Place the pizza directly onto the oven rack. This makes the crust turn out crispier than when baked on a pizza stone
or cookie sheet. We had a slight
overflow of ingredients on one pizza the kids made, so I put it on a cookie sheet to prevent the ingredients from
dripping all over the oven. When the
pizza was done, the crust was okay, but just not as crisp as we like. It was a little soft and bread-like.
Bake in the oven for 10 to 12 minutes, until the cheese is melted. We are a "melted, but not brown and bubbly" type
of pizza family.
Quick and easy dinners are pretty important in my house. It's hard to be patient around dinnertime. We were actually
able to get the pizza prepared and in
the oven during a round of Go Fish. Every family has a card shark, right?
I've got to be honest: dish duty was a definite possibility for me at this point, however I still had a chance!
I tried to get a pretty pizza picture for you to see the amazing end result. However, I was quickly overruled by the
pizza hungry mob anxiously awaiting
dinner. The Go Fish card shark was champion of round one and got the first slice of pizza. Who ended up doing
dishes? I'll just graciously say "thank you"
to my husband, who endured a round of victory songs and flashback dance moves that included "the sprinkler." He said
he would leave me if I put the picture
of him doing the dishes in the gloves and apron the boys picked out for him to wear, so I'll leave it to your
imagination. He's a pretty good sport!
This is going to be my standard go-to recipe for pizza. Sauté Express® Sauté Starter is earning its keep!
We have been able to use it in several
different dishes, from pasta to stir-fry. It's awesome!
The best part of trying this recipe? The kids are completely into helping make their own pizzas and it's a blast
just hanging out in the kitchen playing
cards or games while we wait for the pizzas to be done. The next best thing about this recipe? You won't believe how
much money we have saved by not buying
pizza from a restaurant. No need to buy or have pizza delivered for us on Friday nights anymore. We have a winner,
winner, pizza dinner!
Try this Garlic Chicken Pizza for your next game night
or for a quick dinner and let me know
if you love it as much as we do.
