Taco Pizza

I've learned that a big part of successful, low-stress cooking is making meals with ingredients that can be used for another meal later in the week (for instance, easy crockpot shredded chicken can be used for enchiladas, tacos, pulled chicken sandwiches, chicken salad, chicken pot pie and more).  So, while I think of leftovers as the same meal again, Cooked ingredients (like chicken or broccoli etc) that can be "repurposed" into a different dish feel like a fresh meal.  

So, tonight we used some "leftovers" and fresh ingredients to make a taco pizza.  

I preheated the oven to 450 degrees, and put the pizza stone in when I turned the oven on. 

I used the second ball of this dough from last night and rolled the crust and put it on a pizza pan.

Then I used 4 packets of mild sauce from Taco Bell (you know they give you a gazillion every time, don't throw them out, save them and use them for recipes like this) as the pizza sauce straight on the dough. It's a thin layer, but too much will make it too spicy. 

Then I added shredded mozzarella (you can use cheddar but it tends to be greasier). (about a cup)

Then I used pre-cooked and seasoned ground beef/taco meat and gave a generous layer on the pizza. (about a cup)

Then I added a layer of cooked pinto beans. (about a half cup).

Then jarred jalapenos on half of the pizza (since our 2 year old doesn't care for the extra spice).

Cook at 450 for 8 minutes. The dough should be firm enough to transfer to a pizza stone if you have one, if not, don't stress it. 

Cook for another 4 minutes and the crust should be browned and crispy and the cheese melted and browned.  

Serve hot topped with chopped cilantro, chopped green onion, avocado, salsa, or sour cream, or all of the above!

With the ingredients pre-cooked and ready to go and the dough already made, it took about 10 minutes to assemble and 12 minutes to cook.  Quick, easy and delicious!

BBQ Sauce

I love cooking from scratch, especially when it's relatively easy.  A few months ago I found this BBQ sauce and have fallen in love with it!  Seriously, it's amazing.  And it's not hard at all.  It makes about a quart and can be stored in the fridge for a couple of weeks. 

It's been great with BBQ ribs and BBQ chicken and pulled pork and tonight we used it for BBQ chicken pizza.  I'd say I used a recipe for the pizza, but really I didn't have enough of the ingredients to say I truly followed the recipe.  So here's my modified recipe. 

I used this dough, which was not the best ever, but was good enough.  I liked the italian seasonings in it and instead of just using salt, I used a garlic salt which added a little extra flavor. 

For the topping, I sauteed about a half cup of diced red onion in 1 tablespoon olive oil.  Added 1 cup chopped cooked chicken and 1/2 cup of the BBQ sauce above.  Once it was heated through I rolled the pizza dough, added the toppings and then added shredded mozzerella on top. 

We cooked it for about 12 minutes at 480 with the last two minutes being on the hot pizza stone.  (It was only the last to minutes because transferring uncooked dough to the hot stone has never worked well for me, so I wait until it's cooked and semi solid before moving it to the hot stone.)

It was awesome and easy and will definitely be making a return appearance.