In continuation of my posting of recipes using spinach, I am adding this chicken garlic pizza that was my attempt at something close to Papa Murphy's delicious pizza. Not that it uses more than a handful of spinach, but hey, at least that is one more handful of spinach that is not in my fridge! While my attempt was loosely ruled by the Papa Murphy's version, as is usually the case with my cooking the actual product had some variations to account for what I had available and what sounded good to me.The biggest issue for me was trying to duplicate the creamy garlic ranch sauce that PM uses. After doing a little searching around on the internet, I combined several recipes that I found. And you will never guess what the ingredients are for garlic ranch sauce.... GARLIC and RANCH DRESSING! Well duh! I also added some grated Parmesan. This is the ratio I used which worked well for an approximately 12 inch diameter pizza:
CREAMY GARLIC RANCH SAUCE:
1/2 cup ranch dressing
5-6 cloves garlic, pressed (or 1 heaping tablespoon)
1/4 cup Parmesan
I found this sauce to be pretty close. If anything, it was a little ranchy and not garlicy enough. But maybe my cloves were a little old and fresher cloves would impart more garlic flavor.
Spread the garlic sauce on your pizza crust and cover with spinach leaves. You want the spinach under the other layers or it will tend to burn. Here I used a whole wheat crust that I par-bake and store in the freezer. I will try to post this recipe sometime. But you could use whatever crust you prefer.
Top with thinly sliced grilled chicken and pepperoni (not on the PM version, but I had it and it seemed like it would be a good addition, which it was).
Top the meat with grated mozzerella. Over the cheese put diced Roma tomatos, sliced black olives and chopped green onions. Sprinkle some grated parmesian on top.
Bake at 400 (375 convection) for about 15 minutes. I like to bake it on a preheated pizza stone. Upon removal from the oven I let it cool for a few minutes on a cookie rack to keep the bottom crust crisp.
I think this pizza would also be good with any or all of the following: sun-dried tomatoes, marinated artichoke hearts, sausage, bacon bits. I woulda added them if I'da had em! But it was still quite delish as it is.
