The Chicago Style Stuffed Pizza - Is Your Hunger Game?

I am an avid Hunger Games fan. Now, admittedly, I didn’t go see it at the very first midnight showing, but that’s only because it’s not easy to find a babysitter in the middle of the night. But had I been able to find a respectable teenager who wasn’t already at the movie, or whose parents would have willingly let them stay out until 3 a.m. on a school night, you can bet I would have been there. I’ve read the all of the books at least twice (or 3-4 times if that’s not too crazy sounding) and had been looking forward to this movie for a long while now. I figured we could make a date-day out of it since the hubs and I don’t often get out by ourselves.

So we called our good friends to hit up an afternoon showing. Honestly, we haven’t been to a movie since before Christmas. It was all I could do to not gorge myself on fabulous buttery popcorn while being completely sucked in by the movie. Why did I have to go easy on my giant and delicious popcorn bucket? Because this week the hubs let me pick the pizza, and I knew I was going to dig into a family size Chicago Style Stuffed pizza right afterwards. Appropriately ironic after watching a movie called The Hunger Games, right?

Building the Beast

It may look normal, but you'll know you've got a stuffed
pizza as soon as you attempt to lift it; this pie is a monster!

A little - okay, a BIG! - preview of what lies ahead

So after watching the movie, I went and grabbed Thing 1 & Thing 2 from the sitter’s and met back up with the hubs and friends. I was starving by the time I got back to their house, but fortunately they had already gotten things going and cheesy bread was coming fresh out of the oven as we walked in the door. We whet our appetites with it while we discussed the movie in detail, patiently waiting for the main course to cook.

At 0730 hours, the cheesy bread became sentient ... and delicious.

I have to admit, I was a little overly excited for this pizza. We had a plan. As much as I was looking forward to eating it, I was also looking forward to decorating it. The stuffed pizzas are a marvel in their own right, but this one was destined for even more greatness.  A victor. An 11. A pizza worthy of being a true Hunger Games tribute (see what I did there?). 

We had been discussing varying ways to do this for a few days, and possibly went a little overboard. Should we try to spoon pizza sauce in a pattern? Lay out pepperonis cut in various shapes? Hike out to the middle of the woods and carve it up with swords and spears? Finally we decided on a plan. We would make a stencil from another pizza tray, then use my mini kitchen torch to brown around the stencil and quite literally burn the logo onto the pizza. Sounds amazing, and not at all dorky right? Awesome.

We stopped by the South Rutherford Blvd. Papa Murphy's to see if we could pick up some spare trays, and the only-somewhat-puzzled employees there happily obliged and wished us luck.

Behold, the preparations!

Paper guide is cut out and ready to draw on the cooking plate

Outline tracing is done!

The two stencils that resulted - one for outlining, and a second
to try filling with color. The original plan was to do the outline on
the cheesy bread's backside, and the filled version on the pizza.

Our thinking was that the pizza trays are obviously designed to withstand a nominal amount of heat for an extended period of time. Hopefully those traits would shield parts of the pizza from heat while we used a mini torch to brown the exposed areas and literally cook a Mockingjay pin outline into back side of the crust. We tested the trays with a lit match held under them and they only slightly turned brown when exposed to the open flame. We were ready to rock n' roll.

When the pizza finally came out of the oven, we were nearly giddy with anticipation. The hubs looked excited to be wielding anything with an open flame. The men got the pizza prepared, laid the stencil, and lit that torch up ready to go!

The moment the flame hit the pizza and stencil, hubs realized his creation wasn't going to pan out quite like he planned. Don't get me wrong; there was definitely a very visible correlation between our pizza and the Hunger Games. It was just that our efforts had a lot more in common with Book 2 ... catching fire. Our excitement immediately fizzled as the stencil started to burn without the pizza so much as blushing. Turns out there's a big difference between the heat from a lit match and the business end of a 3400°F propane torch. Oh well. I guess that’s what happens when you get a little too carried away in the kitchen.

A very singed Mockingjay

The good news is we still had a fabulous pizza to dig into. This truly was one of the best pizzas I have ever eaten from Papa Murphy’s. It was massive, flavorful, completely balanced ... my mouth is watering just thinking about it. I’m a meat eating kind of girl, so the combination of sausage, salami, ground beef, and pepperoni really hit the spot. And of course my second favorite part of a pizza is the crust (avid bread/carbs fan here, as well), and with the stuffed pizza you get plenty of crust. We did have them go a little light on the onions, mostly because the onion there are so fresh and have a strong flavor. They had a slight crunch, and mixed in with all the cheese and meats, they really added another level of flavor to make this pizza even more delicious. So delicious, in fact, that it may have to make another appearance or two on this blog. And then I will have to think of more favorable adjectives I can use to describe pizza. Stupendous! Delectable! Mouthwatering! Nectarous! Well, maybe not nectarous (fail thesaurus.com).

22 minutes at 375° came out perfectly for us

I can't stress enough just how seriously big this pizza is!

The cutting wheel, to give you a little perspective on the picture below

More than half the cutting wheel deep into the pizza during slicing

The slice. The myth. The legend. This is one serious piece of pizza.

"We're gonna need a bigger [plate] ..."

Mr. Friend contemplates ... Mini-Friend's first solid food?
Maybe not, considering that slice looks almost as big as she does.

Loving my movie-and-a-pizza couples date night!

Mrs. Friend enjoying her monster slice

March Meat-deLITE Madness

I am going to be completely upfront with you this week about something - I don't care anything about basketball. If I turn on the TV and there are 10 guys running around a wooden rectangle waving their arms, I look for two words - "Jordan" and "Highlights." Barring that, it's back to the Guide button I go. I can easily remember the last two basketball games I ever watched: Cincinnati vs. Florida State one week ago when I couldn't figure out how to change the channel on my elliptical's TV at the gym, and a head-to-head match of NBA Jam Tournament Edition on Sega Genesis in 1997 with my buddy Danny.

All this is normally fine and good. In the Fall, I can easily blend in among my fellow football fanatics. During the World Cup, I can say how much I love soccer and only get the occasional raised eyebrow. And every four years, I can pretend to have been watching the Olympics religiously because nobody knows the difference if I really only DVR'd the Track & Field portion and then caught the rest on the highlight reels.

But not in March. You folks love your basketball. And your pizza. So much so that you ate all the ground beef at Papa Murphy's this past weekend.

Everybody wants Papa Murphy's for game day

We decided to order the Meat deLITE pizza for the first time ever this past weekend. We already order the DeLite on a fairly regular basis since we love pizza but we like saving a few extra calories. However, we almost always either get it with pepperoni only during the Friday specials, or with half-cheese and half-pineapple. This time we were in the mood for something with a little more substance and spice. I love the Italian sausage at Papa Murphy's. Probably even more than you love basketball (yes, even before your busted bracket). And my wife loves the ground beef. Pepperoni is naturally a pizza staple to round it all out, so the Meat deLITE seemed like a great middle ground for each of our meaty-loves.

However, we hit a little snag when it was my turn to order. I had heard lots of murmuring about the Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza while waiting in line, and between that and the basketball fan rush, it seemed the south Murfreesboro crowd had temporarily cleaned out my favorite Papa Murphy's of their ground beef.

Dilemmas, dilemmas. I could practically taste that Italian sausage as I stood there breathing in the aromas, and I already had my heart set, so I made a game-time call and subbed in bacon for the ground beef. Because, let's face it, when's the last time you went wrong with bacon? I also knew my better half would approve seeing as how much she enjoyed it on our Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza the previous week. I asked to have bacon on only half, though, since my daughters are not the most graceful pizza eaters yet and bacon  pieces travel fast in the hands of a 2-year-old who thinks "pizza flag waving" is a fun game.

Meat deLITE all wrapped up and ready for transport!

In regards to cooking times, we still cook our deLITE pizzas for the same amount of time as our regular crusts. This one came out great, per usual. One thing I really love about the deLITE's is that you can cut big slices and then easily fold them in half. Not sure why, but I prefer eating my pizza folded rather than flat, and the deLITE's work very well for that style because you end up with a more balanced crust-to-toppings ratio per bite. At least according to my highly scientific analyses of, "Is it ready yet? Is it? I want to eat it NOW! *scarf* *munch* *nom nom nom*."

Is it weird to say a pizza is "pretty?"
This looks so good even before cooking!

Bacon!

Slice it, serve it, get it on a plate!
That deLITE crust looks so crispy and good.

NOW we're talkin'!

It was such a pretty night that we decided to have our pizza out on the patio. We opened up the umbrellas, got out the lanterns, and had some fun chasing off the occasional carpenter bee between bites. The bacon complimented the sausage and pepperoni very well, although we were surprised that Thing 2 preferred the bacon pieces over the sausage. Not that they went to waste - that just meant double-sausage for me!

Nothing beats a beautiful "Patio Pizza Night!"

Mood Lighting

"Are you sure you don't already
have a bite in your mouth, little girl?"

Thing 1 loves her Papa Murphy's pizza,
but apparently she didn't inherit her
Daddy's sausage-loving gene.

I hope all you basketball nuts enjoyed your pizza, your ground beef toppings, and your pretty weather. But when all this madness is over and March has come and gone, be sure to check back here - this whole experience has given me an idea, and I think the next time we go in for a pizza with ground beef, we're going to try something a little different. So stay tuned. ;) Until then, happy pizza-eating!

So cheesy!

Uh-oh! Thing 2 had herself a level 5 cheese spill.

Mommy sometimes double as a personal pizza butler ...

Mommy and Thing 1 having an in-depth discussion
over the toppings on this particular piece

Loving her pizza under the night sky

Identity Crisis - The Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza

This past week we decided to take our weekly pizza choice in a slightly more ... adventurous direction. It started off with a fairly trivial change of pace: my wife visiting the Papa Murphy's on Old Fort Parkway instead our of usual South Rutherford Boulevard haunt. It ended with a somewhat bold decision when she walked out carrying an order of cheesy bread and the new Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza.

Tempted? They're available through the end of March!

Adding in the main topic of conversation

You can't have a Bacon Cheeseburger Pizza without the cheese!

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.

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.

Dill pickles on the left half

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.

My mouth is watering just looking at this picture

Thing 2 approves

Thing 1 is pretty happy, too

Mmmm ... cheesy bread

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.

It's ready! It's ready!

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.

Pizza with dill pickles (the wife couldn't wait for her piece)

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!"

Is that a pickle I see?

"I love pickles!!"

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.

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.