Creating Your Own Pizza

My kids have both always loved pizza. We discovered some great easy pizza recipes over the years. It can get very costly to keep ordering pizza from the local take out places. So, we began making our own pizzas and today, 20 years later, my kids still love the homemade pizza over the take out pizza.

There are several ideas for crusts. We have used bagels as the crust. We’ve used large bagels, small bagels, onion bagels, jalapeno bagels, cheese bagels and even egg bagels. We cut them in half, add sauce, add cheese and then add any toppings we want.

We have also used english muffins for the crust of the pizza. We like the pizza crunchy, so we always toast the english muffins before adding the sauce. As above, we add sauce, and then we add cheese and any other toppings we want. We buy pineapple chunks, black chopped olives and even use leftover cubed chicken pieces.

We have also used refrigerated biscuits as our crust. Just unroll them and flatten them out on a cookie sheet. I bake them so the dough is not raw then add your sauce and toppings and then put them under the boiler. These make wonderful mini pizzas with a very light tasting crust.

We also have used different sauces on our pizzas. We use pizza sauce, alfredo sauce and barbeque sauce. A restaurant chain here in California is famous for their barbeque chicken pizza. We can make that also. Instead of pizza sauce, we put barbeque sauce on the english muffin or the bagel, then add the cheese and chicken cubes.

If you love vegetables, you can add cut up onions, cut up bell peppers, sliced zucchini or any other vegetable your family enjoys.

You can also add meats. Sliced pepperoni is often a kids’ favorite. You can also brown hamburger meat to add to your pizza. If I use hamburger meat, I let it marinate for a little while in the pizza sauce so that the meat has flavor.

We’ve had a lot of fun trying different cheeses and different toppings on our pizzas. Ask the kids what they want and let them help with the creation.

Add a salad and you have a great inexpensive meal.

Audrey :)

Meatloaf Parmesan

Another suggestion for leftover mealoat; slice the leftover meat and lay flat in a casserole dish. Add tomate sauce and mozzarella cheese. Bake until hot and bubbly. You now have Meatloaf Parmesan.

Audrey :)

Baked Potatoes

Instead of butter and sour cream on your baked potato, try one of the many low fat and no fat salad dressings on the market. I use a cilantro salad dressing, found at Trader Joes that is incredible. You can also try low fat or non fat cottage cheese, in place of the butter.
Enjoy your baked potato, but leave the butter in the refrigerator.

Audrey :)

Ritz Crackers

If you're house is like mine, we tend to eat a half sleeve of Ritz crackers and when we come back the next time, they are stale.Finely crush these stale crackers and use them as a coating for chicken. Brush the chicken with either milk, butter or mayonnaise and then roll in the crushed crakers. Bake as you would normally bake chicken.

Audrey :)

Leftover Meatloaf

Don't throw out leftover meatloaf. Instead, add some water and taco seasoning to the meat, crumble it up and make either tacos or quesadillas the next day.

Audrey :)

Guacamole Hamburgers

Try something a bit different with your avocado. Mash it and add right into your uncooked hamburger meat. Your burgers will have a wonderful avocado flavor to them when cooked.

Audrey :)

Old Stale Cereal

We all buy cereal and then by the bottom of the box, the cereal has gone stale or we are just plain tired of the same cereal. Don't throw that old stale cereal away. Instead use it in your meatloaf recipe instead of crackers or bread crumbs.

Audrey :)

Moving My Blog

I began a cooking hints and tips blog on another site. I didn't care for the blog and so am starting over here.

I love new recipes. If you have a family favorite recipe, email it to me, I'd love to include it on my site.

Audrey :)