See, I do eat vegetables. (Granted, they’re almost always wrapped in some kind of pork product, but still.)

Asparagus, even! Some folks would say it’s not possible. When I was a kid, I hated asparagus so much that I used to hide it behind the couch. True story.

Oh, how times have changed.

So, this is a fancy and fun way to serve asparagus, the springtime queen of green veggies. It’s easy to throw together, and makes a totally impressive table presentation.

This appetizer recipe is my contribution to the Kraft Breakstone’s Holiday Celebration Program. Check out a handful of other great Easter recipes from the other program bloggers here.

The short version of the recipe goes like this

Basically, you take three spears of asparagus, wrap them in prosciutto and puff pastry, then bake for about 20 minutes.

The asparagus is fork tender. The prosciutto is crisp and salty. The puff pastry is golden and buttery.

I served it with a tangy sauce made with Breakstone’s Sour Cream and Parmesan cheese that’s laced with cracked black pepper and fresh, minced sage.

Use regular, medium sized asparagus

The huge stalks might not cook through before the pastry burns. The super skinny stalks will get mushy on you (you know the ones I mean…the little scrawny guys that could double as toothpicks and barely stand up on their own).

Buy domestic prosciutto—not imported

When I’m cooking with prosciutto, I always buy domestic prosciutto—not imported. It’s significantly less expensive, and tastes just as good. Save the imported stuff for antipasto platters or other cold apps.

Prosciutto Wrapped Asparagus Bundles with Sage Infused Sour Cream

Asparagus Bundles
12 spears asparagus
1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
12 slices prosciutto
Olive oil
kosher salt
1 egg, beaten

Sage Infused Sour Cream Sauce
1/2 cup Breakstone’s Sour Cream
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 tsp. fresh sage, minced + a few whole sage leaves for garnish
freshly cracked black pepper

Serves 4

If you can, make the sauce a day ahead of time

This will let the flavors mingle. If you can’t, don’t sweat it. It’s still really good if you make it the same day.

Put the Breakstone’s Sour Cream in a medium-sized bowl.

Toss in the grated Parmesan.

Mince up your fresh sage. Five or 6 leaves should give you about a teaspoon.

Toss the sage in the bowl. Add a little freshly cracked black pepper, to taste. Skip adding any extra salt until you taste the sauce at the end. It should have plenty from the cheese.

Mix with a whisk or wooden spoon.

Give it a taste and correct the seasoning if you think it needs it.

Transfer to a serving bowl. Right before serving, garnish it with a few whole sage leaves.

Do a little prep

Take your puff pastry out of the freezer about 30 minutes before you want to use it. Unwrap one sheet and let it sit on the counter to thaw.

Rinse your asparagus under cold water. Pat it dry with paper towels.

Trim the asparagus

Asparagus ends can get a little woody. Nip off the bottom half inch with a sharp knife.

Wrap the asparagus bundles

Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and set it aside. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Lay a slice of prosciutto down. Set three spears on top of it, so that they’re centered.

Roll the asparagus up in the prosciutto.

Grab your puff pastry. It’s most likely folded in thirds. Unfold it so you have one big sheet.

Cut off a long strip that’s about an inch or so wide.

Basically, you want to cut the pastry so that it makes a band around the prosciutto, like this:

Wrap the puff pastry strip around the prosciutto.

Trim it so that the ends just meet underneath.

To make the bow, cut a thin strip of puff pastry.

Fold one end over in a loop.

Then cross it with another loop to form a bow.

Dab the pastry with a little cold water, and set the bow down in the center. The water will help it to stick. Press down gently in the center (where the knot on the bow would be) to help secure it. If you’re not crazy about bows, definitely make another shape decoration. Hearts would be good. Stars. You get the picture.

Carefully transfer the bundle to your parchment lined pan.

Repeat until you’ve made all your bundles.

Brush & bake

Beat one egg in a medium sized bowl.

With a brush (or your fingertips), gently dab the puff pastry with beaten egg. This will give the baked pastry a really nice gloss.

Brush the exposed parts of the asparagus with a tiny bit of olive oil.

Pop the pan into your pre-heated oven. Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, until the pastry is puffed and golden brown.

Serve & enjoy!

When the pastry is puffed and golden, remove the pan from the oven.

The bottoms should be brown, as well.

Transfer to a serving platter.

Serve hot or at room temperature, garnished with the sage-infused sour cream sauce.

If you’re going to plate them individually, put a smear of sauce on the plate, and nestle an asparagus bundle on top. (Do this *right* before serving, so the sauce doesn’t make the pastry soggy.)

Enjoy!!!

Please note: This is a sponsored post for Breakstone’s Sour Cream. All ideas, thoughts, experiences, photos are my own.

Enter to win $2,500!

Don’t forget, Breakstone’s is hosting a big sweeps on Better Homes and Gardens, where one lucky winner will win $2,500! Enter today!

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Pizza is the great unifier.

I mean, you can take a handful of motley, leftover ingredients (say, a little spinach, some cooked bacon, the last bits of a few different kinds of cheese), put them on a pizza, and…presto! A delicious meal with very little effort.

It’s my ultimate I-have-no-idea-what-to-make-for-dinner-tonight meal.

This is also my second entry in the Breakstone’s Triple Churned Challenge. If you like what you see, please consider voting for my menu! (When you vote, you’ll be entered to win $300!)

Homemade pizza dough versus store bought

For this pizza, you can go all out and make the dough from scratch—or, if you’re short on time, swing by your local pizza joint and ask them to sell you a ball or two of dough. Most places are happy to oblige.

Or grab a ball of fresh dough at the grocery store on your way home from work. (Pizza dough also freezes really well. You just need to plan ahead a little to thaw it out.)

I’ll often make a batch of dough at the beginning of the week, so I have it on hand when inspiration strikes.

My favorite pizza dough recipes

If you want to make your own dough, here’s a list of my favorite pizza recipes to date. I used the dough from the Thin-Crust Pizza for this pizza.

• Thin-Crust Pizza—great flavor, chewy texture, needs to be made the night before
• Nice & Easy Pizza Dough—quick dough, aged less, good in a pinch
• Thick Crust Sausage & Cheese Pizza—thicker, breadier crust

Less is more (the secret to good thin-crust pizza)

Go light on toppings. Use as many as you like, but don’t pile them on by the metric tonne. When you’re tempted to add more: Stop. You can do it. You’ll thank yourself later.

Your restraint will help keep the crust from getting soggy.

Pizza is a good way to use up leftover ingredients

Or stretch a small amount of pricier ingredients to feed a crowd.

For this pizza, you build layers of flavor by quickly sautéing the shrimp in a little bit of bacon fat and freshly cracked black pepper. The bacon adds a subtle smokiness that pairs really well with the asparagus.

Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to peel and devein fresh shrimp. (Scroll down.)

I used 16/25 count shrimp for this recipe, but by all means, use any size you like—or whatever’s on sale.

Bigger shrimp just make a more dramatic presentation.

The white sauce is a mixture of ricotta and Breakstone’s sour cream, which adds a really nice tang to the pizza.

I used whole milk ricotta, but it would be good with skim, too.

For this recipe, I used my favorite Black Forest bacon from Whole Foods.

The Black Forest bacon is totally worth hunting down, and not really more expensive than a pound of regular bacon that’s not on sale. (Alright, I’ll readily admit that I’m probably addicted to the stuff.) But by all means, use your favorite bacon.

The fresh chili pepper adds a little heat (if you’re not crazy about hot stuff, just leave it off).  I also used asparagus, one of my favorite springtime veggies—not to mention an excellent companion to bacon.

This particular combination of ingredients makes a great springtime pizza.

My second recipe for the Breakstone’s Triple Churned Challenge

So, we’ve been challenged!

That’s right! The good folks from Breakstone’s threw down the gauntlet, and we picked it right up (mice love found things, after all). Here’s the scoop on The Breakstone’s Triple Churned Challenge.

Vote today and be entered to win $300

Breakstone’s challenged me and three other gals to create an appetizer, entree, and dessert using their Triple Churned Sour Cream.

This contest is sponsored by Breakstone’s and the winner will be chosen by reader vote. Readers can vote for their favorite recipes here once a day. The grand prize is $3,000 (how cool is that?)!

And every time you vote, you’ll be entered to win a $300. The more you vote, the greater your chances to win. (Thanks, Breakstone’s!)

If you missed it, here’s my entry in the appetizer category: Panko & Chili Crusted Oven Fried Chicken Fingers.

The basic technique for this pizza

The short version of this recipe goes like this: Fry the bacon and par-cook the shrimp. Roll the dough out. Slap a little sauce on it. Arrange your ingredients. Bake in a super hot oven for about 12 minutes. Inhale.

Read on for more detailed instructions.

Spicy White Pizza with Bacon, Shrimp & Asparagus

1 ball pizza dough (see note above)
coarse cornmeal for the pizza pan
1/2 cup whole-milk ricotta
1/4 cup Breakstone’s sour cream
1/4 lb. bacon, diced
1/2 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined
6-7 spears asparagus, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 chili pepper, seeded, deveined, and sliced into thin strips
shredded mozzarella cheese
Parmesan cheese
freshly cracked black pepper

Makes 1 large pizza

Bring your dough to room temperature

For this recipe, I’m assuming that you either bought a ball of pizza dough somewhere—or made your own. If you’ve refrigerated your dough, take it out and let it come up to room temperature before handling.

Preheat your oven to 500 degrees.

Prep your veggies

Nip the bottom quarter-inch or so of the asparagus off and discard. Chop the spears into pieces about a half an inch long. Whack the top off your chili pepper.

Cut it in half lengthwise. Remove the seeds and the ribs. Discard them.

Slice the pepper lengthwise into thin strips.

Make the white sauce for the pizza

Put the ricotta and the Breakstone’s sour cream in a small bowl.

Grind on a little fresh black pepper. (I don’t add any salt here because the shredded cheese is usually plenty salty.)

Mix until uniform. Set aside.

Fry the bacon

Dice the bacon up. Put it in a nonstick pan over medium-high heat.

Stir occasionally, cooking until the bacon is crisp.

Remove the bacon from the pan with a slotted spoon. Set it aside in a bowl (line it with a paper towel, if you like, to catch any leftover grease).

Pre-cook the shrimp

Discard most of the bacon fat from the frying pan. (Save it in the fridge and use it to fry potatoes!)

Toss the shrimp into the pan. Season with a little freshly cracked black pepper. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring frequently.

This is important. You just want to get a little color on the shrimp at this point—but not cook them all the way through.

When they’ve just turned pink on both sides, yank them out of the pan and put them in a bowl. (See how they’re a little blueish and translucent in places? That’s what you want. It means they’re still raw inside.) They’ll finish cooking in the oven.

Roll out the dough

Sprinkle a little coarse cornmeal on a large pizza pan (round or rectangular…up to you!

Set your ball of dough on a lightly floured board.

Stretch it out (or roll it…sacrilege, I know…but also pretty darn effective) so it covers your whole pizza pan.

Assemble the pizza!

Grab your cheese out of the fridge. It’s time to assemble the pizza.

So, by now, your counter should look about like this. Pan covered in dough. Ricotta/sour cream white sauce. Fried bacon and shrimp. Sliced asparagus and chili pepper. Grated Parmesan and shredded mozzarella.

Spread a thin layer of white sauce on the dough. (Depending on how large your pizza is and how thin you rolled the crust, you may or may not use all of the sauce.)

Sprinkle with half the chopped bacon.

Sprinkle with a little shredded mozzarella.

Arrange the shrimp so they’re spread out.

Add some slivers of pepper.

And the asparagus spears.

Sprinkle with the rest of the bacon, a little more mozzarella, and some grated Parmesan. Topping a pizza like this (cheese, toppings, more cheese), helps the toppings stick to the pizza better when you bite into a slice.

Bake the pizza!

Pop the pizza into your preheated 500-degree oven.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the cheese is brown and bubbly and the crust is crisp.

Yank the pan out of the oven. Slice immediately and serve.

Enjoy!

If you liked this pizza, please vote for me!

You can vote daily, and be entered to win $300.

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Here’s my take on a popular recipe for Buttermilk Cluster rolls. These rolls are crusty on the outside, soft and moist on the inside—and dotted with bits of bacon and toasted pecans.

When I toasted the pecans, I did it in the pan that I fried the bacon in, so they pick up a little bit of that smokey flavor.

These rolls would be a great addition to a fall or winter feast (I’m thinking alongside a rib roast). That said, The Angry Chef and I ate them for breakfast, toasted and slathered with cold butter, standing up at the kitchen counter.

These rolls are baked in a 9-inch springform pan and you pull them apart once they’re cool.

The original buttermilk cluster recipe

I started with this recipe from The Fresh Loaf that was posted here on Saveur magazine’s website.

The reader reviews on Saveur.com were all over the map. There were arguments about how much flour was correct to use, whether there was enough flavor, etc. The reviews on The Fresh Loaf were consistently much better.

I think Saveur reviewer paranoidtourist put it best: “Relying on the measurements in the recipe for any bread recipe is like getting directions from one place to another using animals as landmarks; you’ll get somewhere, but probably not where you had in mind.”

That’s a longer way of saying: Baking bread is a fickle task.

It depends just as much on the temperature in your house, if your yeast is fresh, how humid it is, the moisture content of your flour, as it does on the actual recipe. (If you’re in a really dry climate, you probably have to add more liquid to your dough, etc.)

All that said, the picture was absolutely mouthwatering, so I figured I’d give them a try. I modified the recipe a little and was quite pleased with the results.

Ingredients for buttermilk rolls

I used regular ole lowfat buttermilk. A handful of people on The Fresh Loaf used buttermilk powder. I haven’t tried that, but it looks like it’s an OK option if you don’t have any of the fresh stuff. (I assume you reconstitute it according to the directions on the package.)

For the bacon, I used Black Forest bacon from Whole Foods, which is a little sweeter than regular bacon. This is my favorite bacon of all time, but it can be hard to find. By all means, use what you like.

I included pecans in this recipe because I really like them with bacon. Walnuts would be great, too.

Bake buttermilk rolls in a springform pan

Making these rolls in a springform pan helps keep the dough balls together as they rise and bake, which makes for a really pretty finished bread. It also gives the sides of the rolls a nice crust.

A springform pan is one of these things. It’s the kind of pan you traditionally use to make a cheesecake.

The bottom is removable. When you flip open this latch, the sides of the pan expand to make it easier to get your cake (or in this case, your rolls) out. If you don’t have one, I highly recommend one of these.

Buttermilk Cluster Rolls with Toasted Pecans and Bacon

Adapted from Saveur and The Fresh Loaf

1 Tbls. active dry yeast
1/4 cup lukewarm water
1 ⁄ 2 tsp. sugar
1 3 ⁄ 4 cups buttermilk
3 tbsp. maple syrup or honey
5 cups flour
1 1⁄2 tsp. kosher salt
4-5 strips of bacon, chopped
1 cup pecans, chopped and toasted

Oil or butter to grease the pan
1 egg, beaten w/1 Tbls. water

Makes 12 rolls in a 9-inch springform pan

Proof the yeast

Toss the yeast and sugar in the bowl of your mixer.

Add the lukewarm water. (Be sure it’s not hot. Hot water can kill the yeast.)

Whisk the water, sugar, and yeast together. Let this sit on the counter for about 10 minutes.

Make the dough

Add the maple syrup or honey to the bowl. (I used maple syrup.)

Add the buttermilk.

Whisk the whole business together until it’s uniform. (You want to dissolve the syrup/honey.)

Toss in the flour and the salt. I used 5 cups of flour. You might need a little more or less depending on where you are (see note in the intro).

Knead the dough by hand or with the dough hook on a stand mixer for about 5 minutes.

You want the dough to come together in a smooth, not-too-sticky ball like this (depending on where you live, you might need to add a little more flour or buttermilk). Like I said, this is the fickle part of bread baking. You have to play some things by ear.

Let the dough rise for about 2 hours

Cover the bowl with a piece of plastic wrap or a damp tea towel. Set it aside to rise in a warm place for about 2 hours, or until it’s doubled in size.

When the dough has just about doubled in size, like this, you’re ready to deal with the bacon and pecans.

Prep the bacon and the pecans

Dice up the bacon.

Put it on the stove in a nonstick pan over medium-high heat. Stir occasionally. You want to cook it like this until it’s crisp.

While the bacon’s in the pan, chop up the pecans.

I chopped mine up roughly, because I wanted a rustic bread. If you want to go nuts (har, har), by all means, chop them more evenly.

When the bacon is crisp, remove it from the pan with a slotted spoon. Set it aside in a bowl. (Try not to gobble down too much.)

When it’s cool enough to handle, chop the bacon up into smaller pieces. (I do this now, as opposed to when the bacon is raw, because it’s kind of a pain to cut the slippery raw stuff into really small pieces.)

Pour out most of the bacon fat from the frying pan and discard (or save it for something else).

Toss the chopped pecans into the pan. Saute the pecans in the little bit of bacon fat that’s left in the pan over medium heat. Keep an eye on them and stir frequently, because they can scorch.

When the pecans are lightly brown and very fragrant, transfer them to the bowl with the chopped bacon. Set that aside for a minute while you deal with the dough.

Knead the bacon and pecans into the dough

Punch down the dough to smoosh the air out of it.

Toss the bacon and pecans into the bowl.

Fold the dough over a few times to start to work the bacon and pecans through the dough.

Then start to knead in earnest, until the ingredients are fairly uniformly incorporated through the dough.

Form the buttermilk rolls

Round the dough up into a ball and set it on your counter (it shouldn’t really stick, but if it does, toss a little flour under it).

With a bencher (that’s one of these things, one of my favorite kitchen tools) or a big knife, whack the dough into 12 pieces, just like cutting a pizza. Don’t worry if they’re not all 100% the same size. They’ll be close enough.

Grab one of the wedges of dough. Roll it into a ball between your palms.

Spray your springform pan down lightly with a little oil. Set the dough ball in the pan. Repeat with the rest of the dough.

I like to make a circle of dough balls on the outside rim, then fill in the center for an even design. Arrange them however you like.

Let the rolls rise for about an hour

Cover the pan with a lightly oiled piece of plastic wrap (so when the rolls rise, they won’t stick to the plastic). Set them in a warm place to rise for about 1 hour, or until doubled in size.

When they’re just about there, preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Mine rose to just above the edge of the pan.

Brush the tops of the rolls with beaten egg

To make the egg wash, beat an egg together with a tablespoon of water.

Gently brush the beaten egg over the tops of the rolls with a pastry brush (or your fingertips, in a pinch). This makes the top of the bread shiny after it bakes.

Don’t press too hard, or else you can deflate the little guys. Don’t make yourself nuts getting every nook and cranny on the top.

Bake the buttermilk rolls

Pop the pan into your pre-heated 400-degree oven. Bake for 30 – 35 minutes, until the rolls are shiny and warm brown on top.

Now, the Saveur and The Fresh Loaf recipes have you test the rolls for doneness by temperature.

I’ll admit that I don’t often do this. A nice brown crust and a good hollow sound when thumped (another sign that bread is baked through) are usually good enough for me.

If you’re so inclined, however, you’re aiming for about 190 degrees F on an instant read thermometer. (Stick the thermometer in the dead center of the loaf, not touching the edges or bottom of the pan.)

When they come out of the oven, let the rolls cool for about 15 minutes in the pan.

Then, slip off the outer ring of the springform pan and let them cool on a rack.

When you’re ready to serve, rip the rolls apart. Keeps well wrapped on the counter for about 3 days.

Enjoy!

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These chicken fingers are fast food, Mouse-House style. They’re the perfect thing to make when you Just Need To Eat, Like Now (a fairly common occurrence at our place these days, given that we just moved). The dish is really versatile—and easy to throw together on the fly. It’s one of the things I like to whip up when friends pop over unexpectedly.

In terms of prep, these chicken fingers only take a few minutes to put together. Drop a few handfuls of fresh basil leaves onto your chicken tenders. Then wrap a slice of prosciutto around each. Fifteen minutes in the oven, and the prosciutto is nicely crisped, and the chicken is cooked through and juicy as can be.

About buying prosciutto

Now, I almost always have a little prosciutto in the house. If that sounds like a cost-prohibitive practice in this crappy economy, hear me out.

Most big American delis will sell two basic kinds of prosciutto: domestic and imported.

Now the imported stuff—real prosciutto de Parma—is great, but it’s expensive. We generally save it for occasions when we want to enjoy its rich, buttery texture uncooked on its own, or wrapped simply around ripe slices of fig or melon.

When we use prosciutto to cook, however, we generally get the domestic kind, which is much cheaper. (Our butcher, McKinnon’s, carries the stuff for $5.99 a pound, which is much better than the $17.99 price that its imported cousin commands.)

Any kind of prolonged cooking generally toughens up the tender slices of salty pig, so domestic is just fine for cooking in my book. In the case of these chicken fingers, it gives the chicken a sort of unsmoked, paper-thin, bacon-y wrapper.

I also only really buy a half pound at a time, to ensure that it doesn’t dry out before we use it up. To me, that’s short money for a really flavorful ingredient.

As fancy as you want to be

To serve this as part of a more elegant dinner, get a little fancy with how you arrange the herbs under the prosciutto. It’s fairly translucent when cooked, which means that the herbs will show through.

While we’re on the topic of fresh herbs

Indulge me for a minute.

People never believe me when I say this the first time, but: I love to garden. (Maybe it’s because I’ve lived in the city for so long. But it’s true. I love to garden.) I love to dig and get messy. I especially love to plant things that I can cook or eat—which makes all the sense in the world, I know.

For this recipe, I used basil that I have growing in my new container garden on our back deck.

Since we get a ton more sun at our new place in Salem, one of the first things I did was plant a kitchen container garden. (OK, we’re not planning on eating the cacti…) It was right up there with making strawberry ice cream. It was just something that I had an inexplicable and urgent need to do. Before we finished unpacking. Before we totally explored our new hood. (And of course, completely vexing The Angry Chef yet again.)

Whenever I’ve been able to—and even when I wasn’t supposed to—I’ve planted a large kitchen garden. Sometime, ask me about the years I spent living on the top floor of an old movie theater, where I planted a secret garden on the roof, complete with pink flamingos and an embarrassing expanse of astroturf.

Hands down, I love to play in the dirt. And when you cook a lot, nothing beats just walking outside and snipping off whatever you need for dinner.

Oh, if you can make it out, there’s a baby fig tree nestled in one of the pots in the center. I’ll be writing more about that little guy soon. I bought him at the farmer’s market here in Salem, and the guy who sold him to me promised that he’d bear figs next year. I’m not sure I’m entirely convinced it will work, but I’m going to try my best. Stay tuned for that.

Serving suggestions for chicken fingers

I usually whack them into nibble-sized pieces and serve them on a platter as an appetizer. I don’t bother getting fancy with the presentation. You can also serve them whole, with a side of rice and a big, crunchy salad. Or on a bulkie roll topped with fresh tomato sauce and sprinkled with grated Parmesan and sliced provolone.

You can also replace the basil with sage. Or fresh garlic, sliced paper thin. Or cilantro. Or sliced apples. You get the picture.

A note on portion sizes and recipe scaling

I find myself saying this a lot lately: This recipe is more method than actual recipe. It’s one of those recipes that works just as well for one chicken finger as it does for one hundred—which makes it easy to feed the crowd you have on hand.

One chicken finger = one piece of chicken, two or three basil leaves (depending on their size), and one piece of prosciutto.

Scale away! I’ve done the recipe below to feed about 4 as a main course.

Prosciutto and Basil Wrapped Chicken Fingers

12 chicken tenders (or chicken breast sliced into strips)
12 slices prosciutto
about 24 basil leaves
kosher salt
freshly cracked black pepper
olive oil

Serves about 4 as a main course, or 10-12 as an appetizer, depending on how you slice them up.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and set it aside.

Wrap the chicken in prosciutto

Grab your chicken tenders. If you like, you can also slice up larger chicken breasts into tender-sized strips. Totally up to you.

Put a few basil leaves on top of the chicken. Use enough basil to cover the chicken (so that each bite has a piece of the herb).

Grab a piece of prosciutto. Starting at one end of the chicken tender, wrap the prosciutto around the chicken, keeping the basil leaves in place, so it looks like a little mummy.

Don’t worry if some of the basil peeps through. You’re not going for perfection here. (That will happen by itself in the oven.)

Set the wrapped-up chicken on your prepared sheet pan. If the ends of the prosciutto are peeking out, tuck them under the chicken. I don’t bother toothpicking them. They stay together just fine.

Repeat with the rest of your chicken tenders.

Drizzle a little olive oil on each piece of chicken. Then sprinkle with a little kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper.

Pop the pan into your pre-heated 425-degree oven. Bake for about 15 minutes.

Fifteen minutes should be long enough to cook most chicken tenders. (If you cut your own, and they’re on the thick side, cut into one to be sure.)

They’re done when the chicken juices run clear and the prosciutto is nice and crisp.

(That little one there is for the dog.)

If you’re a meat thermometer type of person, you’re aiming for 165 degrees.

Serve and enjoy! They also reheat really well, and are great at room temperature—or even cold.

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Homemade pizza is one of my favorite ways to feed a crowd—especially a crew of hungry movers. (We’re in the process of relocating The Mouse House this week! More on that to come soon!) This particular pizza combines two of my favorite things: bacon and cheese. Think of it as a mouthwatering take on a BLT in pizza form.

Ribbons of fresh basil and paper-thin slices of ripe tomato provide a ton of fresh flavor—without making the pizza too wet. A few handfuls of shredded mozzarella and grated Parmesan give the pie all the cheesy goodness you expect in a pizza.

And then, of course, there’s the bacon. I used Black Forest bacon from Whole Foods, but you can certainly use your favorite kind. (If you’ve been following The Hungry Mouse, you know I can’t get enough of this stuff. It’s deeply smokey and slightly sweet.)

Black Forest Bacon, crisp as can be

How to make the pizza dough

I used the basic dough recipe from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread, by Peter Reinhart.

I first made this dough for the Daring Baker’s October Challenge last year, and it remains one of my favorite pizza doughs. The dough needs to rest overnight, so start it the day before you want to make your pizzas.

If you don’t want to do the dough overnight, you can always use my Nice & Easy Pizza Dough recipe. For a thicker crust, try the dough from my Thick Crust Sausage & Cheese Pizza.

Or, use your favorite dough. As much as I love a good crust, this one is more about the toppings for me.

The dough recipe below makes three fairly large pizzas (maybe 16 inches or so in diameter). I used 2 of the balls for this Bacon, Basil & Tomato Pizza. I used the last to make a slightly smaller, thicker white cheese pizza.

Bacon, Basil & Tomato Pizza

Pizza Dough (Click here for step-by-step instructions for how to make the dough)
4 1/2 cups unbleached high-gluten (%14) bread flour or all purpose flour
1 3/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. yeast
1/4 cup olive oil
1 3/4 cups water, ice cold
1 Tb sugar
Spray oil
Coarse cornmeal

Yields: Enough dough for 6 small pizzas or 3 large ones

Pizza Toppings
Shredded mozzarella
Grated Parmesan
1-2 large, ripe tomatoes
1/2 – 3/4 lb. Black Forest bacon (or any bacon you like), cooked and crumbled
Fresh basil, cut into ribbons
kosher salt
garlic powder

The night before, make the pizza dough according to these instructions. Divide the dough into 3 balls and refrigerate overnight.

When you’re ready to make your pizzas, take the dough out of the fridge and bring it up to room temperature. Preheat your oven to 500 degrees. Sprinkle your pizza pans with coarse cornmeal.

Roll out the pizza dough

Flatten each ball of dough out with a rolling pin or by stretching it across the backs of your hands. Put the dough on top of your prepared pans.

Add the toppings to the pizza dough

Sprinkle lightly with shredded mozzarella. This is to give your tomatoes a base to stick to.

Slice your tomato as thin as you can.

Spread the tomato slices out on top of the cheese. Cover the pizza without overlapping the tomatoes.

Sprinkle with crumbled bacon.

And another thin layer of mozzarella. (It may seem fussy, but I’ve found that layering the ingredients like this helps the all the toppings stick together better, and avoids pizza snafus…like when you take one bite and ALL the cheese comes off in one piece.)

Toss on the cut basil. Spread it out fairly evenly.

Sprinkle with a layer of Parmesan cheese. Then sprinkle on a light layer of garlic powder. Toss on a little salt if you like (there will already be a fair amount from the Parmesan).

Bake the pizza in a really hot oven

Slide your pizzas (pan and all) into your preheated 500-degree oven. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until your crust and toppings are nicely browned.

Cool your pizza for a few minutes on the pan, then slide it off onto a board and cut into wedges with a sharp butcher knife or pizza cutter.

Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

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