Buffalo Chicken Pizza...

While not a new recipe, we went to a past favorite cookie to bake, wrap up and send off to Jeff's niece who is enjoying her first year in college. We've been doing this once a month for the past 6 months as a gift we gave her for graduation. We've been going over what we sent in the past, so let's get that out of the way. First we sent a batch of those Outrageous Oreo Brownies back in September... in October, those Chocolate Malted M&M Cookies went out to her... November's treat brought that Smaller Batch Penuche Fudge... December was that addicting Gingerbread Popcorn... we packaged up those decadent Butterfinger Crunch Blondies in January and of course, for Valentine's Day in February, we made those marshmallow fondant-topped Sugar Cookie hearts. This month?

We decided on those unique Root Beer Float Cookies we made for the first time back in 2006. So good! I'll have to make it a point to make these more often as I forgot how much we liked them!

Jeff had been hinting about wanting a spicy chicken pizza this week for the Friday Night Pizza. I actually had a different pizza planned, but his idea sounded good to me... so I moved the one I was going to make to next week and prepared this Buffalo Chicken Pizza instead!

Before I started stretching out our favorite whole-wheat pizza dough tonight, I first took about twelve ounces of chicken breasts, seasoned them well and grilled the meat until done. Rather than asking for that in the recipe, I just call for about 9 ounces worth of cooked chicken breast... this way you can decide how you want it prepared. Poach the chicken if you like, cook them in a skillet if need be or make it really easy on yourself and pick up a roasted chicken from the market!

When the chicken had cooled enough to thinly slice it, I melted a couple pats of butter and stirred in Worcestershire sauce and a few glugs from our favorite bottle of cayenne pepper sauce. Use your favorite hot sauce and the amount that is comfortable for you - we ended up adding about 2 1/2 tablespoons so it gave the dish a bite that wasn't too voracious, but still had teeth to it. The sliced chicken was tossed in and coated with the sauce before pouring the saucy concoction all over the top of the crust. Giving the pizza a coat of Monterey Jack on top was on tap next, but that isn't the only cheese we were planning on using. When you think of buffalo chicken, one might also think of blue cheese... but rather than bringing it in with another sauce, the pizza is just topped off with a few crumbles on top for that pungent bang.

Baked until the cheeses were bubbling like a volcano and the crust had taken on a golden hue, Jeff couldn't contain himself and took a bite almost right after it came out of the oven! A burned tongue later from the molten toppings, he did say it was worth the pain as this pizza was just what he was looking for! I did quite enjoy the marriage of the more mild Jack and the strong, but not overwhelming, crumbles of blue cheese, along with the piquant toppings underneath. The only thing I might do differently next time is give the crust a 3 to 5 minute head start - it was completely cooked, but since it was pretty heavily topped with moist ingredients, I thought it could have used a few minutes more.

Recipes
Buffalo Chicken Pizza