BBQ Chicken and Blue Cheese Pizza

 This is another recipe that I've been meaning to blog about for a long time. We've made this pizza multiple times but I never get a chance to take pictures because 1) it's too late and dark outside, and 2) we eat it so quickly that I can never wait to take pictures. Salivation and starvation usually take over and end up winning. A lot.

Anybody who knows us, knows that we love to make homemade pizza. We basically make it once a week, and usually on Fridays. This particular version was created back when we lived with Michael's parents, as we were searching for our home (over 2 years ago, where does the time go?). It totally tastes like a gourmet slice that you'd get at a nice pizza restaurant. Favorite BBQ sauce, chicken, sliced red onions, blue cheese, and topped with fresh parsley and cilantro after it's finished baking. An amazing combo.

 For the crust, we've slightly adapted Mike's Pizza Crust over the years. We've found that we prefer a thinner and crispier crust, so to accomplish that, we use more oil and less flour, resulting in a wetter and stickier dough. Also, we turned down the oven temperature and bake the pizza for a longer time. And the crust turned out PERFECT this time. Michael and I both commented on how wonderful the texture of it was against all the toppings. I think we've officially ironed out all the kinks in and found our perfect pizza crust!

So, make this tonight, or on Friday (as is our tradition), and enjoy a slice while watching a movie!

BBQ Chicken and Blue Cheese Pizza

Crust
(slightly adapted from Mike's Pizza Crust)
Ingredients:
1 cup hot water (from the hottest setting on the tap)
1 tbs. sugar
1 tbs. yeast
1 tsp. salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 1/2 cups flour

Directions:

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, combine the water, sugar, and yeast together and let sit for about 10 minutes to allow the yeast to germinate (until you see bubbles). 
2. Add the salt and vegetable oil and mix. 
3. Add the flour, 1/2 cup at a time, with the mixer on low. Once all the flour is added, knead with the dough hook for about 6-7 minutes. 
4. Spray bowl with cooking spray and coat all sides of dough with it, to prevent sticking. Cover bowl with plastic wrap or kitchen towel and set in warm place to rise until doubled in size (about 30-45 minutes).
5. As the dough is almost finished with rising, preheat oven and pizza stone to 400 degrees. 
6. Roll the dough out on a floured surface to the size of your pizza stone. Sprinkle corn meal on the stone and transfer dough to stone, then cover with all your favorite toppings. 
7. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the edges of the crust start to brown and cheese is melted and bubbly.

Toppings
Ingredients:
about 1 cup Favorite BBQ Sauce (we like Sweet Baby Ray's)
2 medium chicken breasts, cooked and diced
blue cheese, crumbled
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
fresh parsley and cilantro, chopped

Directions:

1. Top pizza crust with first 4 ingredients, in order listed.
2. Add fresh parsley and cilantro AFTER pizza comes out of the oven.
3. Let pizza cool about 10 minutes, slice, the enjoy!