Mexican Pizza from Heaven

This week has been one crazy fella.   Last Saturday I finally succumbed to my local yoga studio's free first visit and had a fabulous Hot Yoga experience.  Which of course, prompted me to buy their 2 week unlimited plan for $25 - you don't find better yoga deals than that.    This led me to a week full of work, running home and tossing some sort of dinner together for the boy, then running out again for yoga, followed by some sort of late (9ish) dinner for me and then bed.  Add dog walking unto that mix as well.  I gave up on Wednesday after work kept me late and my stress level was at an all-time high.  So when 5 o'clock rolled around yesterday I had a plan.  No yoga but delicious dinner.  I give you Mexican Pizza from Heaven. 

Two things I feel I should share before I go further, I am in LOVE with tomatillos right now, and second, my camera was dead! when I started dinner last night so all my prep was done sans photos, sorry!

 

When I started thinking about dinner I knew I needed to use the tomatillos and poblano pepper that I had at home, I also knew I had leftover chicken in the fridge (from my previous post!). As always, I started with foodgawker.com and browsing found my inspiration in Dana Treat's blog with her Haunted by Pizza post.  Pizza sounded perfect and I recently found a new dough recipe that I'd been wanting to try on Kayotic Kitchen.  So, I ran home, made the dough, set it in the microwave to rise and went to walk the dog.  By the way, it was a fabulous 50 degrees here yesterday! So we celebrated by heading down and exploring the beach, now that some sand is visible again.  B was also in heaven :)

Mexican Pizza from Heaven
adapted from Dana Treat
 

Pizza dough

Poblano pepper puree

1/2 large red onion

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

3-4 tomatillos, husked and chopped into small pieces

1 package frozen corn (or about 2 cups)

3/4 of a can of Black beans, drained

about 2 cups shredded chicken

1/2 an avocado, sliced thinly

handful of chopped cilantro

Chop and assemble all the ingredients first, its easiest to put each into their own little bowl. 

Here is my chicken, shredded; my red onion, chopped into thin strips and my tomatillos, chopped and seasoned with salt and pepper. 

Clockwise from left: black beans, drained; lime; poblano pepper puree; avocado; cilantro and corn. 

For the poblano pepper puree:  Roast pepper under the broiler until skin blackens and starts to peel.  Cover pepper in bowl with saran wrap for 5 minutes (this helps with peeling), then remove the blackened skin and seeds.  Chop roughly and toss into a food processor with a little liquid.  I used tequila (because, why not!) but water or beer also works, and puree. 

Heat the oven to 500 degrees.  Toss in the pizza stone to heat if you have one (I must pick one up soon!)

Heat your saute pan, cast iron for me, over medium heat and add just enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan.  

 When hot, add the onions.

Cook until the onions are tender, about 10 minutes.  

Meanwhile, oil your pizza pan (unless you're using a stone) and spread the dough. 

Drizzle a little oil over the dough and then spread the poblano pepper puree.  I ended up using all of the puree - poblano's typically arn't that hot but they have great flavor.  

Back to the onions, once tender, add the chicken to reheat.  Remove from pan and set aside.

Add a tad more oil and the corn.  Originally, I had only planned to use half the box of frozen corn, which is what you see here, but then realized that it wasn't near enough and added the entire box.  Cook for about 5 minutes, or until the corn is tender.

Add the black beans and mix.  Then remove and set aside to cool. 

Assemble your pizza!  I added the onions and chicken, followed by the corn and black beans. 

 

Then the tomatillos.   Bake until the crust is golden and crispy.  Depending on what pan you use, this could be 10-20 minutes.  We like our crust pretty crisp, I think it cooked for about 20 minutes. 

Once its out, top with cilantro and the sliced avocado.  I cut up a lime and squeezed that over my pieces too. 

No Mexican dish is complete without salsa, so I whipped up a batch of that as well and snacked on it while I was waiting for the pizza. (Recipe coming soon!)

Like I said, Mexican Pizza from Heaven, and just what I was craving for my mid-to-end of the week revival.  Tonight I'm off to yoga right after work! My lovely hubby is in charge of dinner  :)

Happy Friday!