Chicken and Onion Pizza

Recently, our money problems have forced me to take my Bookless Cooking to a whole new level.  When there literally isn't enough in the checking account to go to the store until next payday, good meals require a lot of  rummaging and more than a little creativity.

This week, I've been making up recipes just about every night, but I think my favorite attempt was a chicken and onion pizza.  While digging through the freezer, I found some 8-inch pizza crusts I'd forgotten were in there.  But what to do with them?  There was no cheese in the house (we've been cutting down on dairy as Hubby has recently discovered he's lactose intolerant). I knew from my studies of Italian cuisine that Italian pizzas have many different versions. Therefore, cheese and tomato sauce are options, not requirements.

Looking around for other things to put on the pizza, I first thought of onions.  Carmalizing them was one option, but the hour it would take was too long (Hubby was hungry).  I also knew Hubby would need a more substantial meal than a cheeseless vegetarian pizza would offer.  Some leftover cooked chicken would provide the nessasary protien, but what about those onions.  I quick web search gave me an idea: balasamic roasting (something I've done with cherry tomatoes for pasta).

Our oven preheats quickly, and by the time the onions were prepped (I cut them into one-inch pieces), the oven was at 400 degrees.  I tossed the onions with olive oil and a little Balsamic vinegar (a good-quality bottle we'd gotten at a farmer's market back in summer when we had money).  The onions got 20 minutes in the oven to turn crispy around the edges.  While they roasted, I cut up the chicken and made some infused olive oil by soaking a crushed garlic glove, some red pepper flake, and fresh-ground black pepper in 3 tbsp of oil.  The oil was brushed onto the pizzas, the roasted onions and chicken placed on top, and back in the oven for another 10 minutes or so to heat through.

Results: This produced a decadent pizza that I hope would be at home in any bistro on the Tiber.  The only problem I had was cohesion.  Without a cheese layer, and without a soft dough that the toppings would bake into, the chicken and onions had an annoying tendency to fall off.  Perhaps next time a little bit of inexpensive cheese will be called into service, (though Hubby will have to take his lactose pills) or maybe I can figure otu something else, like maybe chopping the onions fine before roasting.