Looks Can Be Deceiving

Sometimes you make a big ole meal, and, well, it looks like a big ole mess. But it tastes so good! That's what happened with last night's dinner — BBQ Chicken Pizza.

Yea, I know. It's not very pretty. I used a recipe from the inside of a box of Beyond Meat Grilled Chicken-Free Strips. It was such a simple recipe, and anything with barbecue sauce, fake chicken, and vegan cheese is right up my alley. Comfort food at its finest.

My problem started with the crust. A couple months back, I made a trusty batch of "Pizza Dough — A Novel" from Vegan with a Vengeance. It's a no-fail recipe that I've used time and time again. It makes two crusts, so I always freeze one in a ball and use one right away. When I saw this BBQ Pizza recipe, I knew I had a crust in the freezer. Perfect right?

I sat the frozen dough in a large bowl, coated with olive oil, and covered it with a towel to thaw and rise. It works every time. But not this time. You see, I placed that rising bowl in the microwave (to keep the cats out while I was at work) along with the frozen package of Beyond Meat, which also needed to thaw in a cat-free zone.

But I guess two frozen items thawing in one tiny space made too much cold for dough to rise. It thawed, but it failed to rise. I used it anyway, and it made a cracker-thin crust that was tasty but too thin to really hold the chunky Beyond Meat chicken and toppings. 

Still yet, the pizza was delicious. Beyond Meat, which is the most convincing plant meat on the market, is tossed in BBQ sauce, salt, and pepper. More BBQ sauce is spread over the pizza crust. That's topped with red onions, the chicken, vegan mozzarella (I used Follow Your Heart shreds), and fresh herbs (I used basil).

Delicious! But not so pretty. Oh well.