And I Thought *MY* Sauce Rocked...

Normally I'm not a huge fan of store-bought pre-made sauces.

I've been making my BBQ sauce for quite awhile now, after discovering how much better it is when I make it myself.  I give complete credit to good recipes that are not my own and tomatoes from the garden, so no tooting my own horn here :-)

Well, then I won this little giveaway on a fellow Allrecipes Allstar's page- Hudson Valley Handymom.  She's a pretty awesome gal, and I love her blog.  

Anyway, she partnered with a small company called Uncle Gary's Gourmet Peppers and Pepper Jelly and I won a jar of their Zesty Peach BBQ sauce and a jar of their Candied Jalapeño BBQ sauce.  Candied Jalapeño just sounds divine, doesn't it?  Well, the taste lives up to the expectation, for sure.  Before we even cooked with it my husband took a taste and declared that he could eat it with a spoon.

He's right.  It's phenomenal.  I do believe that this stuff is my new sauce of choice.  

I'm not saying that as a representative of anyone.  I wasn't asked to provide a review or plug their product.  This is just me.  Nora.  Loving this stuff enough that I wanted to share it with you.

Premium Pizza Crust prior to cooking-
click the picture for the recipe!

I really wanted to say thank you to these guys for the sauce and I was REALLY excited to play around with it a little, so my husband and I got cooking this weekend- chicken wings smoked and slathered with the Candied Jalapeño sauce and a smoked pizza made with the Zesty Peach sauce were on the menu.

Why am I on a diet?  Ugh.  Lets just say, the diet didn't stick when I made these.  I couldn't stay away...

The chicken wings don't even really require a recipe.  Smoke on the grill, slather with sauce, serve when done.

They're FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC.

OMG.

That amazing pizza smoking away...as you can see we just
have a regular old Weber grill that my husband has an unnatural
attachment too.  If you need a primer on smoking on a Weber click here!

But the pizza...it was a little more involved.  I'll include the recipe at the bottom.

We started out with my go-to pizza crust, Premium Pizza Crust from Allrecipes.com.  It really is the absolute best pizza crust I've ever made.  While the dough was rising, my husband smoked a couple of chicken breasts on the grill- no extra seasoning needed, the sauce does it all later.

When it was done rising, I shaped the dough.  My husband stuffed the outer edge with mozzarella when I left the room...I'm not complaining.  Great move on his part :-)

I coated it with a little bit of Uncle Gary's Zesty Peach BBQ sauce before he smoked it on his trustworthy Weber grill.

While he was smoking the crust, I prepped the veggies inside, sweating onions, red bell pepper, and mushroom on the stove.

When the crust was mostly done, he brought it back inside for me to "dress."  I added another schmear of sauce.  Then I topped it with shredded chicken breast that had been tossed with the zesty peach sauce, veggies, a sprinkling of cheddar, a heavy drizzle of sauce, a load of mozzarella, a little more chicken...yum!  My husband took it back out to finish on the grill.

PHENOMENAL.  And I really don't use that phrase lightly.  My husband, who professes to be a connoisseur of all things BBQ, was pretty much speechless and may have used some words that I won't repeat here.

He was in love.

This is an awesome little company with a truly exceptional product.  I know I'll be ordering from them in the future!

Smoked Pulled Chicken Pizza with Zesty Peach BBQ Sauce

Pizza dough for one pizza (1/2 batch of the recipe mentioned above)

8 oz. Uncle Gary's Gourmet Zesty Peach BBQ Sauce

1 large boneless skinless chicken breast

1 medium yellow onion, sliced thinly

1 medium red bell pepper, sliced thinly

8 oz. sliced mushrooms

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

1/2 C shredded cheddar

2 C shredded mozzarella

Soaked wood chips

1. Smoke chicken breast over direct heat and shred with fork.  Toss with 2 Tbsp BBQ sauce.

2. Preheat pizza stone and dust with cornmeal.  Shape pizza crust as desired.  Add additional soaked wood chips to charcoal and smoke crust (on the pizza stone) 5-8 minutes over indirect heat, or until edges begin to turn golden.  Remove from grill.

3. Sweat onion, red bell pepper, and mushrooms with black pepper and red pepper on stove until they begin to soften.

4. Spread 1/4 C of BBQ sauce on center of crust.  Top with vegetables.  Drizzle with 1/2 C of BBQ sauce.  Sprinkle with cheddar cheese.  Top with shredded chicken.  Drizzle with remaining BBQ sauce.  Add mozzarella cheese.

5. Put pizza on stone on grill over indirect heat, adding additional charcoal and wood chips as needed.  Cook until cheese is completely melted and crust is golden brown.