chicken, pesto and mushroom pizza with goat cheese

This pizza dough is made with a cup of beer instead of water and it makes a big difference in the flavour, in my opinion. I use my bread machine to mix it up but you can make it in a big bowl too. Sometimes we don't make the dough and just buy dough from the bakery section of the grocery store. No shame in that, either!

Pizza Dough
(makes two thin crust pizzas)

1 cup beer
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 3/4 cups flour
1 tbsp dry yeast

If using a bread machine, just put in all the ingredients, choose the dough setting and walk away.

Or, you can: measure the beer into a measuring cup and warm it for about 1 minute in the microwave. Pour the warm beer into a bowl. Drink the remaining cold beer from the bottle (very important step, haha). Add the sugar and yeast to the bowl and stir to dissolve. Stir in the flour and salt. Form the dough into a ball (best done with your hands). Place in a large, lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let it rest for about 30 minutes to an hour.

When the dough is ready, cut it into two pieces. Roll, stretch and press the dough into a lightly oiled, round pizza pan. Or you can roll it out on a pizza stone, in which case I don't use any oil, just a generous sprinkle of cornmeal to prevent any sticking.

Now it's ready for your favourite toppings. The photo above shows a pizza made with pesto, shredded chicken, mushrooms, goat cheese and a little mozzarella (to hold all the toppings together nicely). I added some freshly ground pepper on top and it was so good. We ate the leftovers cold for breakfast the next morning. I also like chicken, bacon, mushroom, and caramelized onion, with mozzarella and a little sprinkle of asiago. The salty bacon and sweet onion are just meant to be together on a pizza.