Pita Pizzas

Over Christmas break we discovered a new favorite way to make personal pizzas. We are big on pizza here in our house. I constantly crave this whole - wheat goat cheese, proscuitto, and carmelized onion pizza. My kids, however, are fans of the kiddo fave - cheese pizza, or if they are living really dangerously, cheese and pepperoni.

Enter a new way to prepare pizza - on pita bread. How have I never heard of this before?

Ingredients:

whole-wheat round pita breads (1 per pizza)

sauce of choice (my kids love a basic marinara, but get creative and try olive oil or an alfredo sauce)

cheese of choice

toppings of choice

1. Heat oven to 425 degrees. I think it works best when you place the pita breads in the oven for a few minutes to toast the underside prior to putting toppings on, but if you don't mind your pizza not having a crisp crust, you can forego the toasting.

2. Build your pizza with sauce and toppings of choice. This is the kids favorite step!

3. Place pizzas in the oven on a cookie sheet (line with parchment paper to save yourself some clean up).

4. Let cook for 5-10 minutes until cheese is melted on top and ready to eat.

Enjoy!

My brilliant sister shared this new way to make pizzas with me. In the summer they build their pizzas and pop them right onto the grill for cooking. What a fun summertime party idea! Trader Joe's sells mini pita breads (about the size of a silver dollar) - I am excited to make little mini pizzas as a snack.

Quick Cinnamon Rolls. Heavenly.

These were an impromptu creation. We have decided as a family that these shall be hereforth called "Christmas Morning Rolls". Because they taste so good - they taste like Christmas. And, they were easy. Way too easy to taste this good.

Last week, we discovered how to make Pizza Balls out of pizza dough. These cinnamon rolls were made out of the same whole-wheat pizza dough from Trader Joe's.

Here's the lowdown.

Ingredients needed:

1 package whole wheat pizza dough, or recipe of pizza dough

a few table spoons of olive oil in a bowl

2 tablespoons of brown sugar

cinnamon

pumpkin pie spice

walnuts (probably about 3 tablespoons)

olive oil cooking spray

optional - glaze made with 1/4 cup powdered sugar, 1 tbsp milk, 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract all whisked together

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray the inside of a cake pan or bundt cake pan with olive oil cooking spray.

2. Follow instructions for pizza dough preparation, and after it has risen according to instructions, roll out on a lightly floured surface into a large rectangle about a 1/4 inch thick.

3. Once you have your dough rolled out, brush the surface of dough with olive oil with a pastry brush (this is a perfect task for a pint sized helper).

4. Sprinkle brown sugar evenly over the dough. Follow with cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice (do as much as you like. I was pretty generous because I love cinnamon). Lastly, sprinkle walnuts evenly over the dough. I did not measure how many nuts we did. The kids just did handfuls until it looked good to us. When done, spray a light layer of olive oil spray over the nut mixture.

5. On the shortest side of the rectangle begin rolling the dough up into a long roll. Roll it as tight as you can. Lightly spray the roll on all sides with olive oil cooking spray.

6. Take a pizza cutter, and cut the roll into sections that are about 1 inch wide. Place the rolls into your cake pan like you see in the photo below.

7. Bake for 30 - 35 minutes or until the rolls are lightly browned on the top and the dough feels done, but not dry. (We are very technical around here) :) While the rolls bake, prepare the glaze if you are using it. They would be lovely either way.

8. Remove from oven and top with glaze.

ENJOY!