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Monday, September 23, 2024

Meal No. 3705: Chicken Bacon Ranch Pizza

Once I'd prepped some no-knead skillet pan pizza dough, I set it aside for a cold ferment in the upstairs beer cooler. When I was ready to actually make the pizzas last Monday night, I thought the small portion of leftover chicken tenders might find a way into it, and I decided that should be an adventurous pursuit. After working up an invented ranch-styled béchamel, the rest of the story wrote itself: chicken, bacon, and cheddar cheese on that surprising ranch sauce. Near the end of cooking, a scattering of shredded mozzarella was the finishing touch. It's a heavy slice once the pies are cut, and all it took was two to feel sufficiently full.

A whole cheese pizza was baked alongside and it was turned into leftovers for the house and an offering for some neighbors.

Perhaps a better choice that evening would have been soup or chili, because the third week of September started chilly and drenched, as we underwent the outer drear of a loose and disorganized tropical system that inundated the North Carolina coast. By Monday evening, Carolina Beach had received 18 inches of rain.

We had an enduring drizzle of mixed intensity, plus all those weird whips of wind gusts that highlight the chaos of this unsettled atmospheric anomaly.

These are days where doggies are a greater management challenge, and yet I know how adorable and cooperative and compliant they are with the wiping and toweling that must occur after each time out.

The persistent drizzle turned heavier at times while the house slept, so Tuesday morning brought the revelation of a new leak spot where it had never been before on the second floor: right over the club chair in the front corner. It got soaked from the hours of slow dripping.

So out went the towels and pans for the continuing rain plague all day Tuesday.


Pizza Crust based on "Fool-Proof Pan Pizza," by J. Kenji López-Alt, culinary consultant for SeriousEats.com. [Updated 30 March 2023]

"Homemade NY-Style Pizza Sauce," by J. Kenji López-Alt, culinary consultant for SeriousEats.com. [Updated 17 February 2023]

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