California Pizza

Shawn scheduled a meeting with vendors who were coming in from out of town on Friday evening, March 9. I wasn't real excited about him working late on a Friday night (does that sound shady to anyone else?). I said "What's worse than your spouse working late on a weekend night?" He responded "How about being the one working all the time?" True. He's right. I'm glad he has a job and works hard at providing for our family. He doesn't typically work unreasonable hours, and this is for a major project he's been trying to salvage. So, I really shouldn't complain. I do trust him; I was just annoyed at first. But, I decided to try and make it a fun day for the boys.

Awhile ago, my contact from Water Street invited me to her house to have dinner during volunteer appreciation week. She made this incredible California pizza and I thought that it might be fun to try to make homemade pizza with the boys that evening (after That Bounce Place in the morning). The boys were excited to help me cook. :) We started by rolling out the pizza dough with the pin from Great Grandma Kennel. Every time I get it out, I think of her. Shawn said she was an impressive cook. :)

Here's the recipe:

California Club Pizza - Pampered Chef

Minutes to Prepare: 20, Minutes to Cook: 20, Number of Servings: 8

Ingredients

1 tsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil (which you can skip, I'm told, if your stone is seasoned enough)
1 pkg Pillsbury thin crust pizza dough
2 cups shredded chicken breast
8 oz grated reduced fat cheddar cheese
2 small tomatoes, seeded and diced small
1/4 medium red onion diced small
1 medium avocado diced small
1 tbsp lemon juice

           

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Brush large cookie pan with oil and place dough in pan. Sprinkle boiled/shredded chicken on dough along with cheese. Bake 15 minutes. In a small bowl, combine avocado, tomato, onion and lemon juice. When pizza is out of oven, sprinkle this mixture on the cheese/chicken and bake another 5 minutes. Enjoy!

The pizza dough package said you can precook the dough before putting any ingredients on. Next time, I would follow that instruction. Also, I thought I could use canned tomatoes that were already diced small, but it made a big difference in the taste for freshness, so I wouldn't do that again. I had some precooked chicken that had some black beans and corn in already. While I thought it tasted fine, my kids were annoyed that there were beans on their pizza. Such is life! When the pizza was first made for me, she cooked the red onions so they were a bit tender, so I did the same thing. You wouldn't have to, though.

The avocado is the best part, in my opinion. :) Here's the mix of ingredients waiting to be spread on the pizza after the cheese is melted.

Here's the colorful pizza when it comes out of the oven. Yum!

The boys didn't enjoy this pizza as much as I thought they might (since they don't care too much for pizza sauce) but it was still fun to make together.  I think it's something yummy and different if you get tired of the same old thing. Here are the boys enjoying their dinner that night.

Shawn got home earlier than expected, but we were at Universal. I took a Zumba dance party class that evening and the boys had fun playing with their cousins in the kid-mazium. When we got home, Shawn had beat us and was hoping to surprise me that his meeting got done early. Whoops! :) It had been a fun day.