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| Tempted? They're available through the end of March! |
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| Adding in the main topic of conversation |
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| You can't have a Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza without the cheese! |
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| All wrapped up and ready to go |
I had the oven preheated in anticipation before she even walked through our door. She set down the cheesy bread, then the pizza, and we looked them over. Yep, those are pickles. On a pizza. In our kitchen.
Weird.
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| Cheesy Bread and Pizza - Let's get this show on the road! |
To give a little background our individual tastes, we're both pretty big fans of pickles, and our oldest daughter would eat them exclusively if we let her. However, my wife prefers dill, whereas I'm more of a bread & butter man. And neither of us had ever previously entertained the thought, "You know what this pizza is missing? A bunch of pickles ..."
In the interest of (further) shaking things up a bit, we ordered our pizza with pickles on only half of it. Papa Murphy's uses dill pickles when building this creation, and I wanted to try it with some of my own Vlasic Bread & Butter chips on my half. We also left one large piece completely free of pickles to compare the taste.
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| Dill pickles on the left half |
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| And now a few bread & butter pickles added on the right side |
We baked the cheesy bread first, calming our growling stomachs with it as we watched the main event slowly brown in the oven. By the time it was ready, there was a definitive scent in the air. I wouldn't have mistaken it for a full-on cookout had I been strolling past outside the house, but there were most certainly some familiar aromas that remind you this Italian-heritage meal has now been fully Americanized.
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| My mouth is watering just looking at this picture |
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| Thing 2 approves |
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| Thing 1 is pretty happy, too |
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| Mmmm ... cheesy bread |
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| Family pizza night! |
They say first impressions are everything, and the Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza didn't disappoint in making quite the introduction to our taste buds. The first thing I noticed wasn't the pickles, but rather, the sauce. Instead of your standard pizza sauce spread, there was a special sauce that I'm told is a mixture of ketchup and mustard. Fitting, and surprisingly pleasant. It compliments the hamburger meat well, and provides a nice amount of "zing" to really set the taste of this pizza apart.
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| It's ready! It's ready! |
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| A more colorful pizza would be hard to find |
After a couple more bites, the pickle taste was distinguishable, but not at all out of place. Had I not been very aware of the fact that I was eating pickles on a pizza, I daresay that it would have actually been the onions and bacon I noticed next. The onions were very fresh and produced a bold, juicy flavor on several bites where they crushed between the teeth just right. I very rarely have onions on a pizza unless they are accompanied by a lot of other veggies, so their flavor really stood out to me. When we order this pizza in the future, that's the one thing we will probably change about our order - getting it with light onions instead of the normal amount. A very subjective matter of preference, naturally, but if you are not as big of an onion fan, it's something to keep in mind when ordering.
The bacon was quite tasty. Nice and juicy with a flavor Jim Gaffigan would surely give his stamp of approval. I liked that it was in small bacon chunks versus hard little bacon-bit style pieces.
In regards to my experiment with my own bread & butter pickles instead of the dill slices that Papa Murphy used, I have to call it a tie. I love the more tangy flavor of the bread & butter pickles, but the dill pickles tasted great and fit on the pizza a bit better thanks to being a bit more thinly sliced than my own pickles. If you love bread & butter pickles, I'd definitely encourage giving your own a try if you're feeling a little creative and, let's be honest, kinda naughty - but I think you'll be very happy with the standard choice of dills if you want to keep things nice and easy.
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| Pizza with dill pickles (the wife couldn't wait for her piece) |
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| And then some bread & butter to shake things up a bit. |
As for the piece without any pickles, we split it with our youngest daughter. She loved it, but both my wife and I preferred the slices with the pickles still on. I mean, if you're going to get a Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza, you've got to go all out, right? The oldest daughter took the opposite approach, eating all the pickles and cheese off her slice and then promptly turning and saying, "I would like more pickles, please!"
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| Is that a pickle I see? |
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| "I love pickles!!" |
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| Pizza on a fork ... she doesn't care how she gets it, as long as she GETS it |
All in all, it was a rousing success. It's a unique enough flavor that it wouldn't be our "default pizza" (I have yet to find anything I love on pizza more than pineapple, after all - my mother still claims I'm not right in the head), but I can't wait till we get the chance to give it a second sampling. It ought to make a great party pizza. Food and a conversation starter all in one!
But wait ... there's one more thing. This might not be for the faint of heart, so if you're easily startled, this is your chance to look away.
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| Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza with Miracle Whip - Tell your friends you saw it here first. |
Yes, that is Miracle Whip on my pizza. And it was spectacular. I always put it on my cheeseburgers; ergo, I had to try it on my Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza. I also put a little ketchup on top, though my thoughts on that addition were mostly "I could take it or leave it." The Miracle Whip, however, added some very nice zip to my last slice. So if you're feeling really adventurous and you've already come to terms with your own there-are-pickles-on-my-pizza paradox, give it a whirl! And leave us a comment letting us know what you thought of your own Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza, along with any customizations you made to it or would recommend.
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