Jalapeño Popper Pizza

It's Friday and we're going to talk about pizza. As such, I hereby open with this quote,

"You can't have Thanksgiving without turkey! That's like Fourth of July with no apple pie, or Friday with no two pizzas!"

I bet you can guess what show that quote is from... 

If you guessed 'Friends', you guessed right 😜 What can I say? I was picking up the house this morning, doing my normal chores, making the bed, and thinking about what I was going to write today. I started thinking about pizza... and that it's Friday... and the quote just popped into my head. Quotes from 'Friends' strike my mind every day in almost any situation, and while we won't be having 2 pizzas this Friday, the quote still made me smile. 

I think even Joey would approve of this pizza. A creamy, cheesy, ranch base with plenty of bacon, melted cheese, and peppers? Oh yeah, heaven. Even better? I cheated and used a store-bought pizza crust. This was fast. Easy. Melty. Just the right amount of crunch. In a word, delicious. Thanks to the cream cheese base, the pizza really does capture the essence of a jalapeño popper. The hubby and I both loved it, but really, we aren't picky when it comes to pizza. 

I cannot wait until I have fresh garden jalapeños to use for this. Store-bought peppers work in the winter, but there's something magical about produce from the garden. It just tastes better. I've already started my tomatoes and peppers in the house, however I've only had 2 peppers sprout so far. One Rainbow Bell and one Hungarian pepper have sprouted, but my sweet peppers, Anaheim's, and jalapeño's have yet to pop. I know peppers usually take a little longer, but I get impatient. I will say though that my tomato plants look better than any I've ever grown. I'm feeling really hopeful that these will make it to the garden. If they do, it'll be my first successful year growing tomatoes from seed. I seem to have a green thumb for peppers, I've always grown them from seed. But so far I've had to buy tomato starts every year. 

I'm crossing my fingers! 🤞🏻

The hubby's favorite part of the pizza was the bacon. Men and their bacon, I tell you 😄

I really liked adding a little bit of ranch to my cream cheese for the base. It gave the sauce a nice little zip. I just really wasn't feeling spreading a glob of cream cheese onto my pizza. It's too much cream cheese flavor for me, I can't handle it. The ranch mellowed it out though, and the combination was super tasty. Most of the recipes for Jalapeño Popper Pizza that I looked at directed one to spread just the cream cheese on the crust, so I'm glad I thought of an alternative to that! 

See, I think this would be just perfect for a Friday night. With an ice cold beer? 

Or maybe for Final Four basketball this weekend? Oh yeah. Have I mentioned that the Ducks are in the Final Four? First time in my life! With the cheddar cheese and the slices of jalapeño, it almost looks like a green and yellow pizza! 😂

What can I say? I love those Ducks! 🦆

And that wraps up this incredibly busy week. I felt like I barely got a chance to breathe this week. I've been seeing a chiropractor 3 times a week for 3 weeks now, and I think it's helping. I mean, the pain is decreased. Not gone, but I'm doing better. I also made my brother's birthday cookies this week, and that was time consuming. The little bro wanted "dipped Oreos" and the Oreo's didn't necessarily have to be homemade. I wasn't about to send commercial Oreo's, so I took a couple of test runs at homemade Oreo's before sticking with a recipe (which I will share soon!). I finally got the right formula for the cookies, dipped and sprinkled them to perfection, and dropped them in the mail yesterday. I had just enough time to run outside and plant a couple of veggies that I've been meaning to plant all week. I was really excited though, I got onions, garlic, carrots, and several lettuce's planted. I also started a couple more hyssop plants and a couple of wildflower mixes for the bees. I've really got garden fever now, I swear. And we've still got about a month of frost-weather left. Booooooooo. 

The hubby and I have a fun weekend planned. The hubby has been doing a lot of work near Athens, OH, which is about 2 hours from us. He's really been wanting to show me the area, so we are headed out there tomorrow. We're probably going to tour Ohio University's campus, maybe take a walk down by the river, and definitely have lunch at one of their craft breweries. It should be a good time 🍻

Sunday may be not be so fun, as I've got yard work slated for the hubby. We've got weeds in the backyard that are about ten feet tall that need to be mowed down. But at least it should be a nice sunny day ☀️

I hope everyone has a great weekend, Happy Friday friends!

Recipe adapted from: Natural Chow

Ingredients (makes 1 pizza):

3 slices bacon, chopped

1 store-bought pizza crust

6 ounces cream cheese, softened

1 tbsp ranch dressing

2 jalapeños, thinly sliced

1 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded

1/2 cup cheddar cheese, shredded

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425º, placing a pizza stone on top shelf (Lightly spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray if you don't have a pizza stone). 

2. Place chopped bacon in a small frying pan. Fry bacon until crispy. Remove with a slotted spoon, and set aside.

3. Place pizza crust on pizza stone in preheated oven (or on cookie sheet). Bake for 5 minutes, then remove to a cutting board.

4. In a small mixing bowl, combine cream cheese and ranch. Spread mixture over pizza crust evenly. top with reserved bacon, sliced jalapeños, and cheese. Bake in preheated oven for 7-10 minutes, or until cheese is melted. Remove from oven, and slice. Serve immediately. 

Printable Recipe

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