When suddenly it was 4:00 and I hadn’t started my favorite pizza crust in the bread machine, I knew I needed another action plan. I’d been craving a change from our pizza routine anyway, and this allrecipes.com pizza was it!

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BBQ Chicken Pizza is one of the great inventions of our time, as far as I’m concerned. I tried the BBQ Chicken Pizza of most restaurants I know of that serve it and I’m convinced that the most important ingredient is the perfect BBQ sauce. Over the past few years I have experimented with various sauces and methods to cook the chicken to develop this recipe that our family loves. One thing I love about this pizza is that I can have chicken and cheese on hand in the freezer and make it any time–a perfect recipe for a 3 month supply of food.

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This is a delicious and easy pizza that tastes very gourmet! I love to use fresh tomatoes, but canned tomatoes will work as well.

First, make a whole wheat pizza crust.

Second, spread with basil pesto. You can buy prepared pesto; I usually make my own by blending up something along the lines of the following:

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup spinach (primarily to give it a bright green color, especially when using dry basil)

1 tsp dried basil

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp garlic salt

1/4 cup toasted slivered almonds (toast by stirring in a frying pan over medium heat for 4-5 minutes)

1 1/2 TBSP Parmesan cheese

1 TBSP lemon juice

I have made all kinds of improvisations–leaving things out, using sunflower seeds instead of almonds, just mixing oil, lemon juice, basil and garlic–it always turns out well. So be creative with what you have on hand.

Third, top Pesto laden pizza crust with thinly sliced tomatoes–2 large tomatoes, 3-4 roma tomatoes, or about a can of whole tomatoes, sliced.

Finally, sprinkle with mozzarella cheese and other desired garnishes – Parmesan cheese, Italian seasoning, etc. Bake for recommended time, usually about 15 minutes until cheese begins to turn brown. Delicious!

This has become a staple at our house–we have pizza nearly every Friday night. I use the bread machine’s manufacturer recommended pizza dough recipe, substituting whole wheat flour for two of the three cups of flour it calls for. I also use instant yeast.
My recipe is:
1 cup warm water
1 cup all purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour (made from white wheat)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1 1/2 TBSP butter (no substitutions)
1 1/2 TBSP dry milk
1 1/2 tsp dry instant yeast

Another delicious whole wheat pizza crust is this one at allrecipes.com: Amazing Whole Wheat Pizza Crust. I might make it more often if I had a mixer and didn’t have to knead it.

Something I’ve done to make this incredibly quick and easy is to make little dry mixes out of all of the ingredients but the flour and water. I line up a bunch of baggies and dump the required salt, sugar, butter, yeast, and dry milk in each one. I use a twist-tie to close them, and then store all of them in a heavy duty Ziploc freezer bag. When Friday rolls around, I just pull one out and leave it on the counter for an hour or so to reach room temperature. Then all I have to do is add water, flour and the contents of the baggie to the bread machine and select the pizza dough option.

My only wish is that every day’s meals were this easy!