I'm a huge fan of the Chicken, Bacon and Artichoke pizza from Papa Murphy's, but ever since I moved to the southwest side of town, I'm not close to a Papa Murphy's store and I don't get to pick one up as often as I would like. I've thought many times about trying to duplicate it at home, but I could never think of what to use for the creamy, herbed white sauce that they use. Until I saw the new Philadelphia Cooking Cremes, that is.
Philadelphia Cooking Creme is a new product from the people who make Philadelphia Cream Cheese. It is available in four flavors; Italian Cheese & Herb, Savory Garlic, Original and Santa Fe. As soon as I saw it I wanted to try it and started brainstorming ideas. I picked up a couple tubs on my last trip to Meijer. I went with Italian Cheese & Herb and Savory Garlic. I wasn't sure what I was going to do at the time, but I figured both of those flavors sounded good and the nature of the product opens up a lot of possibilities, so I figured I could wing it. Philadelphia Cooking Cremes are basically thinned out cream cheese with flavors added to make a perfect sauce for mixing into casseroles, tossing with pasta, topping a pizza, spreading on a sandwich, or numerous other possibilities.
Living alone, I sometimes have a hard time motivating myself to cook meals for myself during the week. I'm also always on the lookout for quick, fun meals for when I have friends over on the weekends. I liked the idea of the crooking cremes because they could be the bassi for so many quick, yummy dishes and I was dying to try them. When I realized what a perfect sauce the Italian Cheese & Herb variety could make for my coveted chicken, bacon and artichoke pizza, I hurried to shop for the rest of the needed ingredients. I picked up a pre-baked, thin pizza crust, a bag of mozzarella cheese, a can of quartered artichoke hearts, and some green onion. I already had chicken breasts, red onion and a package of bacon at home. Papa Murphy's version has baby spinach but Meijer was out and since it's my least favorite topping, I decided to skip it.
When I got home I roasted both halves of a boneless, split chicken breast seasoned with some salt, pepper, and garlic powder at 350 for about 35 minutes and set them aside to cool. Meanwhile, I cooked the bacon, drained it and crumbled it into pieces. I also chopped the green and read onions and cut the quartered artichoke hearts lengthwise into two thinner pieces. When the chicken was cool, I shredded it. The crust I bought needed to be brushed lightly with olive oil. This made it slightly more difficult to spread the creme sauce on top but nothing too difficult, I was able to make it work! Once the sauce was spread, I added the shredded chicken pieces, the artichoke hearts, the bacon and the red onion. After I sprinkled the mozzarella cheese on top, I also gave it a light sprinkling of green onions. I had enough ingredients to top two pizza crusts. I baked each of them directly on the middle oven rack (one at a time) at 425 for about 10 minutes, until the crust was crisp and the cheese melted.
The result was very good and I would make it again either for myself as a quick weeknight meal, or for friends. The cooking creme was a perfect topping and the only thing I would do differently is either use an Italian cheese blend rather than straight mozzarella, or maybe just give it a sprinkling of freshly grated Parmesan before baking. I'm excited to try the Savory Garlic cooking creme as well and I have plans to experiment with it this coming weekend. If I come up with something special I'll report back!
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