Chicken Antipasta Pizza

Pizza is such an easy recipe to change and suit your needs, toppings can be seasonal or colorful, vegetarian, or full of meat.  This pizza is a good combination of both.  Originally I made it using just the antipasta vegetables but decided it really needed something else.  At Costco they sell very yummy inexpensive rotisserie chicken that I've posted about previously and we had one in our fridge we hadn't used yet.  The pesto was also from Costco and bought two bottles when it was on sale so I used on right away and froze the second one.  We had just one bottle left in the freezer. I took out the frozen one and thawed in the refrigerator over night before adding to the chicken.  If you are looking to change up your Friday night pizza then this is the recipe for you, it's a good blend of flavors.  

I made a video of myself preparing the pizza and used that in place of the many photos I normally have in a post.  Let me know if you prefer the video or photographs for the recipe steps.

Pizza Dough

Ingredients:

7 cups Hi-Gluten Flour (Bread flour may be substituted)
2 3/4 cup Warm Water
1/4 cup Olive Oil
1 1/2 Tbs Active Dry Yeast
1 1/2 Tbs Kosher Salt
1 Tbs Honey

Process:

Warm up water in microwave for 40 seconds.  Add yeast to water, salt, honey, and olive oil in a stand mixer mixing bowl.  Allow mixture to activate(rest) for 5 minutes.

Add flour and blend with dough hook on medium until a smooth ball forms.

Place dough in bow greased with olive oil.  Allow to rest in refrigerator overnight before using for pizza.

Chicken Antipasta Pizza

Ingredients:

1/4 of Prepared Pizza Dough

3/4 cup Shredded Rotisserie Chicken Breast

2 Tbs Pesto

1 cup Shredded Provolone & Mozzarella Cheese

1/4 cup Marinara Sauce

2 Tbs chopped Kalamata Olives

2 Tbs chopped Artichoke Hearts

2 Tbs chopped Sun Dried Tomatoes

Olive Oil

Parchment Paper

Process:

Mix pesto with shredded chicken in small bowl, refrigerate while dough rests on counter.

Preheat a pizza stone or baking steel in oven set to 525 F for at least 1 hour before baking pizza. 

Section off a ball of pizza dough and roll it in olive oil on a piece of parchment paper large enough for a 12 inch pizza.  Rest for two hours on counter.

Press the dough with fingers and use knuckles under dough to stretch the dough into a thin disk with a thicker outer edge.  

Ladle on sauce in a thin layer leaving the outer inch crust without marinara.

Sprinkle on shredded cheese then the other toppings, ie chicken, kalamata olives, artichoke hearts, and sun dried tomatoes.

Using a pizza peel or inverted cookie sheet move the pizza to your stone or steel.  Bake for 5-8 minutes or until cheese is bubbly and under carriage of pizza has brown spots.  

Place pizza on a cooling rack for 3 minutes before slicing.

Enjoy!

Golubtsi

My sister-in-law Rachelle, asked me if I was going to make a Russian recipe in honor of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and actually, I had thought about it.  This recipe according to Natasha of Natasha's Kitchen is a classic Russian/Ukrainian dish. This morning was exciting, when I went shopping for this recipe.  I felt like a New Yorker.  I still couldn't get my van out of the ice and snow, so I took my son to preschool on the MTA bus.  Thankfully the butcher shop I have chosen to go to is just down the street from the preschool.  I came prepared, wearing a backpack for my shopping trip.  I went to the butcher and asked for the meat needed for tonight's and tomorrow's dinner.  It was fun watching the butcher prepare the meat.  He was very nice.  After I went to the butcher, I went down the street to a grocery store next to the train station and bought the other ingredients for my Russian inspired meal.  I needed to go to the train and refill my MetroCard before I could go home.  It was cold, but I loved filling my backpack and walking around town like a true New Yorker.  On we go to the recipe.  Golubtsi is basically Russian stuffed cabbage.

 It tasted really good.

 Ingredients for this recipe are: 1 small head of cabbage, 1 1/2 cups carrots, 1/2 lb. ground pork,
1/2 lb. ground turkey, 1 1/2 cups cooked brown rice, 1 1/2 cups marinara sauce ( I used homemade, recipe found here), 4 tablespoons vinegar, 2 tablespoons butter(not pictured), 4 tablespoons olive
oil (not pictured), 1 egg, and 1 1/2 tablespoons salt.

Preheat oven to 450 Fahrenheit

Fill stock pot with water 2/3 full.  Add vinegar and 1 tablespoon salt to water.   Cover with lid.
Turn on burner to medium-high.  Bring water to boil.

 Grate all the carrots.  Saute half with 2 tablespoons oil and 1 tablespoon butter over medium-low
flame until tender.

 Add 3/4 cup marinara sauce and simmer for 1 minute.

 Put rice, meat, egg, carrot marinara sauce and 1/2 tablespoon salt in bowl.

 Mix it until it looks like this.

 Water is boiling, after removing core of cabbage add to water with core facing up. 

 Boil cabbage for five minutes.  Flip over and begin peeling off each layer, with tongs I was able
to peel two layers after five minutes.  

 Remove middle vein with paring knife.

 Add a golf ball size amount of meat mixture to cabbage leaf half.

 Fold leaf over meat.

 Now roll.

 Done, repeat with the second leaf.  Once you have filled to leaves you can peel two more and
repeat same process.  Each two layers will be ready after filling the previous two leaves.

 Place filled cabbage leaves in a oven safe dutch oven or other oven safe dish with lid.  After all the filling has been used, keep the pot of water on the stove.

 Saute other half of carrots in 2 tablespoons olive oil and 1 tablespoon butter over medium
flame until tender.

 Add remaining 3/4 cup marinara sauce and simmer for 1 minute.

 Pour 1 1/2 cups cabbage water and remaining 3/4 cup marinara sauce over rolls in the dutch oven.

Bake for 20 minutes then lower temperature to 350 Fahrenheit and bake 1 additional hour.

Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Eggplant Parmesan

Tonight my friend Lori will have her recipe for eggplant Parmesan.  Ask and ye shall receive.  This recipe came about as a side dish to the massive lasagna I made on Saturday over the weekend for a dinner party.  My friend Angela and I tag teamed dinner with another friend Tiffany helping that night, and with my husband's description of this particular dish we came up with a recipe using the ingredients I had on hand.  It was a hit, well liked by everyone, won out over the lasagna just barely too.

Preheat oven to 450 Fahrenheit.

 

 I like the softness of the photo, and the taste of this meal was out of this world good.

 Ingredients for this recipe are: 2 small eggplants (pick firm fleshed ones), 4 eggs, flour, salt &
pepper, shredded mozzarella cheese, and prepared marinara sauce (you can use my
homemade sauce recipe found here).

 Slice eggplant into 1/4 inch slices.  Sprinkle salt and pepper on one side of the slices.

 Place a cup of flour in container, with a fork beat the eggs in another container.  This will be your dredging station.

 Dredge eggplant slices in flour on both sides....

 Then into egg....

 Finally into flour again.

 Preheat 1/2 inch of olive oil in large skillet. Fry eggplant until golden brown on both sides.  I changed the oil once in the middle of this process so I had fresh oil for all of the frying.

 Remove from oil and place on paper towel lined plate.  Sprinkle with salt.

 Add a layer of sauce to two long bread pans if you want to do what I did (necessity is the
mother of invention when you don't have a rectangular pan) or to a 9x13 pan (glass or metal).
Add one layer of fried eggplant.

 Spoon on some sauce, a little really, and sprinkle with cheese.

 Repeat until all the eggplant is used.

 Bake in oven for 30 minutes.

Serve yourself a stack or half a stack of eggplant.  I really like using a bread pan, the
fried eggplant retains its crisp fried edges this way. 

Enjoy!