Chicken apple pizza

We have been trying to have pizza a bit more often since everyone likes it, but in addition to a regular pizza, I like to try something new. This was our something new this past week. The original recipe called for a chicken-apple sausage. I would have loved to try this with chicken apple sausage, but I didn't go and find any. Saw a couple of recipes for chicken apple sausage, but I really didn't have time to make them because we ended up doing pizza on a piano lesson day (my regular slow cooker night because I'm busy teaching and don't have time to make an elaborate meal.) I'd love to try this with a chicken apple sausage.  I saw an intriguing recipe at marthastewart.com.  And another rather different, yet still intriguing recipe at about.com.  They used ice rather than fat in their sausage - very interesting.  Another day.  

This recipe was in my Taste of home magazine, but it was in an add for lucky leaf pie filling.  

I have to be honest, I was a bit worried to try this pizza.  I mean, apple slices, onion, chicken and gouda - I wasn't sure if I even liked gouda, but this pizza was really good.  I loved the caramelized onions on it.  Yum.

This recipe also had baby arugula on it.  I bought arugula and everything then forgot to add it at the end.  Silly me.  I'm writing it how I made it because I changed a few things.  Our pizza was a bit smaller than the original recipe.  It wanted you to make a 14" pizza but our pizza peel and pizza stone won't really accommodate a pizza quite that large.  I've adjusted the amounts accordingly where I could.  Some things like cheese and chicken I don't measure.  I just add until it looks nice.  We also never follow directions for cooking pizza.  The original had you cook it cooler, cook the crust part way, add the toppings and cook again.  We just put the oven as hot as it goes and cook it raw crust with toppings until the cheese is melted and crust is done.

 

Ingredients

• 1/2 Tablespoon butter
• 1/2 medium sweet onion sliced 1/4 inch thick 
• pre-cooked chicken (not sure on an amount)
• 1 pizza crust - we used a roman dough, but you could use a tube refrigerated crust.
• 1 can premium pie filling (we used the sugar free.  It had tons of apples.)
• 1 - 1 1/2 cups shredded gouda cheese (original called for gouda or provolone)

Directions

1. Pre heat oven as hot as it will go.  (550 for us.)  
2. In a small skillet, saute onions in butter until tender and slightly caramelized.  
3. On a floured or greased surface, roll dough into a 10-12 inch round pizza.  Spread with pie filling.  (We did not use the whole can.  Maybe 2/3 of it.)  Top with onion and chicken.  Sprinkle with cheese.  Bake 8-10 minutes until cheese is melted and crust is golden.  (You may want to check it after 5, but it seems like this one took a bit longer to cook.)