While some may argue tonight's Friday Night Pizza isn't really a pizza, I won't mind as these
Pizza Pot Pies were quite fun!
For the quick homemade sauce, a can of fire-roasted crushed tomatoes is perked up by warming garlic, fresh aromatic rosemary and diced pancetta. When the pancetta had a chance to crisp from the heat in the saucepan, the tomatoes are added, along with a few crushed red pepper flakes, and are left to gently simmer and concentrate the tomato's flavor.
Now that you have a basic, but zesty sauce, shredded cooked chicken is stirred in, along with chopped broccoli florets and chunky pieces of mozzarella cheese. This juicy combo is divided between six ramekins - use round ones if you want, but we had these festive miniature ceramic holiday loaf pans and they had enough room to hold the filling. To make these pot pies, we now need a topping. Instead of a pie crust or biscuit type covering, we prepared our favorite
whole-wheat pizza dough, stretched it out and sliced pieces to fit our ramekins with enough extra to hang down the sides.
To help give the tops a bit of color as they bake in the oven, we brushed each crust with just a little olive oil. This also adds some sticking power for the fresh grated shreds of Parmesan cheese we sprinkled on top. If desired, you can certainly add or subtract the filling ingredients to your taste - take out the chicken and toss in some crumbled Italian sausage or sautéed mushrooms if that sounds good to you. While you could steam the broccoli before hand, adding the tight florets raw will let them retain some texture after being cooked in the sauce. I did comment to Jeff that the sauce seemed a touch too liquid-y once it was baked, so I would think about maybe stirring a spoonful of tomato paste into the sauce, before adding the tomatoes, to give the sauce some body.
For the quick homemade sauce, a can of fire-roasted crushed tomatoes is perked up by warming garlic, fresh aromatic rosemary and diced pancetta. When the pancetta had a chance to crisp from the heat in the saucepan, the tomatoes are added, along with a few crushed red pepper flakes, and are left to gently simmer and concentrate the tomato's flavor.
Now that you have a basic, but zesty sauce, shredded cooked chicken is stirred in, along with chopped broccoli florets and chunky pieces of mozzarella cheese. This juicy combo is divided between six ramekins - use round ones if you want, but we had these festive miniature ceramic holiday loaf pans and they had enough room to hold the filling. To make these pot pies, we now need a topping. Instead of a pie crust or biscuit type covering, we prepared our favorite whole-wheat pizza dough, stretched it out and sliced pieces to fit our ramekins with enough extra to hang down the sides.
To help give the tops a bit of color as they bake in the oven, we brushed each crust with just a little olive oil. This also adds some sticking power for the fresh grated shreds of Parmesan cheese we sprinkled on top. If desired, you can certainly add or subtract the filling ingredients to your taste - take out the chicken and toss in some crumbled Italian sausage or sautéed mushrooms if that sounds good to you. While you could steam the broccoli before hand, adding the tight florets raw will let them retain some texture after being cooked in the sauce. I did comment to Jeff that the sauce seemed a touch too liquid-y once it was baked, so I would think about maybe stirring a spoonful of tomato paste into the sauce, before adding the tomatoes, to give the sauce some body.
Yum that looks great! Never had a pizza style pie before. If you want a good meat pie you have to come to Australia! We don't really have sweet pies like in America, but we specialise in meat ones :)
ReplyDeleteThis is a good idea for us on a Friday night, after visiting the elderly folk and arriving home about 8.30pm! Hungry!
ReplyDeleteI could make up a batch & freeze it, then just add the topping, excellent, thanks.
Jacqui - I'd love to go someday!
ReplyDeleteLesley - Good idea with the freezing!