A Twist on the Reuben

I'm a corned beef lover. There, I said it. Don't be jealous Buppy! To be honest, I'm a total carnivore and love most meats, but corned beef holds a special place in my itty-bitty heart. The seasoning, the tenderness . . . oh how love it all! Corned beef & cabbage? Yes please! Reubens? You betcha! A big hunk o' corned beef on my plate with nothing else? Sure!

My big hang up at restaurants though is Thousand Island dressing on reubens. Ick. Blecky. That stuff is almost always down-right horrible. Ruins my sammy in my humble opinion. And the worst part? Every now and then I forget to ask them to 86 it. And then I'm stuck with it. In all it's gross glory. Usually I cope and chalk it up to my own forgetfulness [no one else to blame, damn] and it's still a decent sandwich. The exception to this that really sticks out in my mind happened in the Inner Harbor in Bmore at the M&S Grill. Beautiful little restaurant, outside seating next to the water, plenty of people watching to be done . . . and the worst Thousand Island dressing ever. Even Buppy agreed, and he likes the stuff! We actually switched meals and he choked down my sandwich [I don't even remember what he ordered and I ended up eating, but it sure was better than that nastiness!]

I don't generally like Kraft salad dressings either; not that they're bad, I just have other brands I prefer. Except for Kraft's Thousand Island with bacon. I wouldn't eat the stuff on a salad, but it actually adds some nice pizazz to reubens. Good job Kraft, well done!

So where is all this talk of corned beef and reubens going? To reuben pizza, of course! I saw a recipe card once upon a time in a Taste of Home magazine and always thought, "Man, I wish I could make that, but what would I use for sauce because Thousand Island dressing is baaaaaaaaaad stuff?" But now that I've found I like Kraft's, I did it. I made the pizza. And it was everything I dreamed it would be. Can I get a woo-hoo?There's no real recipe. We used an $.88 dry packet of pizza dough that you just add water to and let sit for 5 minutes. Note: Buppy has the hardest time spreading the dough out in the pan, so he is no longer allowed to attempt this step. Trust me, it wasn't pretty. The dough was spread out onto a rectangular baking sheet until it was as thin as I wanted. I'm a thin crust kinda gal, but not cracker thin. We then spread some Kraft thousand island dressing onto the crust; enough to where it doesn't look like the pizza will be dry in the end. I didn't use as much as I'd have used were it a normal pizza with red sauce, if that helps any. We toss on some well-drained sauerkraut; important to drain well so the pizza doesn't get soggy. Trust me, I once made a Hawaiian pizza with crushed pineapple --- you can imagine how that turned out. Won't do that again!Back to the reuben pizza: we topped the sauerkraut with chopped leftover corned beef from the night before. On top of that? Oh yeah, shredded Swiss cheese. We baked it per our pizza dough package instructions, and about 10 minutes later had a thing of beauty sitting before us. That pizza was good. Like real good. Like hide-the-leftovers-for-yourself good. Try it; you can thank me later. Enjoy!


*This is linked to Life as Mom’s Ultimate Recipe Swap for 3/17/11 for St. Patrick's Day recipes. Love it!