Bird is the word - Pesto Chicken Pizza

So for the past couple of days I have been absolutely craving pizza.... but for some reason, every time I thought about where I would go pick up pizza at I just became immediately turned off. I think that the more times you have the same pizza the less appealing that pizza becomes.

Today when I was driving home from school I was absolutely starved... what was I going to eat? Then the pizza creeped back into my mind. But I don't have any crust, I told myself... that's not very helpful. Sitting at the stoplight on Main Street I began to ponder what else I could put pizza on: a pita, a slice of bread? The alternatives were not sounding very attractive. Then when I thought that all hope was lost and started to scroll through my contacts for the all-too-familiar pizza delivery number I remembered: Publix. Publix sells pizza dough. I quickly swerved into the right hand lane cutting across traffic before I nearly missed the turn. The only thing on my mind was pizza, these other cars will understand.... but maybe not, because some guy definitely yelled something in an unpleasant tone while I was waiving to him with that crazy pizza desire in my eyes....

At Publix I was nervous, it's 6:15, I thought... everyone in Columbia, their brother, and their monkey's uncle are going to be here getting groceries for dinner. I spotted the fresh pizza dough from the moment I walked in the door. My heart started pounding as I realized that there was only one bag of dough left. Just one! I picked up my pace, I was practically jogging to grab the last bag of crust and I was not afraid to cut off old people and mothers with babies to get it. As I approached the dough I saw a guy staring me down from the other side of the aisle. I thought maybe he was going for the dough too and we both reached out at the same time. Luckily I had my hand on the dough bag first... I won! I was so giddy with excitement for winning the competition to the dough that I had barely the time to notice that the guy was reaching for the freshly baked italian loaf right next to my dough. Oh well... I won.

I was so excited about the thought of my delicious pizza that I didn't grab anything else in the store. On my way home I started thinking about all the things I could put on my pizza and how marvelous my pizza was going to be until I got home and realized that none of those things I wanted to put on my pizza were actually in my kitchen. As I rummaged around in the fridge and pantry for about 10 - 15 minutes I started to think that I had a pretty good selection of toppings. What I settled on was no less than fantastic and I hope you give it a try:

Pesto Chicken Pizza
1 perfect pizza crust
1/2 cup prepared pesto (store bough or homemade, see below)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup onions
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, cooked and cubed
3 slices bacon, cooked and chopped
3/4 cup mozzarella cheese
freshly grated parmesan cheese

Homemade Pesto sauce:
1 or 2 garlic cloves
2 cups fresh basil leaves, tightly packed (2 ounces)
2 tablespoons Mediterranean pine nuts
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup (1 1/2 ounces) freshly grated Parmesan

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

First, cook/prepare the pesto (I used the Knorrs kind that comes in a package tonight, but typically I would make the pesto recipe above). Cut the chicken breast into small, bite-sized cubes. Sprinkle salt and pepper over chicken for taste. Marinate the chicken in some of the pesto for as long as possible, preferably more than 30 min. After marinating properly heat a large skillet to medium-high heat. Put the chicken (and some of the marinating pesto sauce) in the pan and make sure you move the chicken around often. You'll notice when the chicken starts to brown on all sides (literally like 4-6 min depending on the heat of your skillet) and then you need to take it off and put the chicken on a side dish to cool.

Cook the bacon in a skillet over medium-high heat until crisp. Cool bacon on paper towels to soak up grease. Rough chop the bacon when cool.

Chop approximately 1/4 of an onion in a fine mince and chop two cloves of garlic similarly.

Dough: Wow this is a tough one. Make sure you use a floured surface and have a rolling pin handy. It will take some work by hand but if you like a thick crust (as I do) you'll be okay. First things first though, don't expect your crust to be perfectly circular or you will just about drive yourself crazy trying to finagle the dough to your liking. If you do like I do, just roll the dough until it appears to the right consistency as you like (no matter what the shape) and slap it on a non-stick or lightly greased pizza pan. (My crust tonight turned out to be somewhere between an oval and a rectangle.... just do what you can and let it go. Dough is fickle thing and for some reason I think it knows what you're trying to do to it and will do everything it can to fight against you.)

Put some of the pesto sauce on the dough and put in oven for about 5 minutes to allow the dough to set.

After the dough has set in the oven for about 10 minutes,  sprinkle just a little bit more salt and pepper, cover with bacon, onions, garlic, chicken and top with the cheese (I find that putting the cheese on last helps the other toppings stick together better). Drizzle a little bit of extra virgin olive oil over the top.

Tada! The finished product:

Cut as you may wish (I prefer rectangles). ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS!

Enjoy!