Simple Cooking Part 3: Pizza

Black Bean Tostada Pizza

My kids are 2 and 5, so pizza is always a hit in my house. I really enjoy eating at restaurants like California Pizza Kitchen that make creative pizzas and try to "think outside the box" with pizza for my family. We are getting to the point where one pizza isn't always enough for the 4 of us, so I usually make two pizzas.  One pizza is almost always half cheese, half pepperoni! The second pizza is usually a  little more creative...or at the very least has peppers and olives on it (my kids don't enjoy those on their pizza). A few years ago, I would not have classified pizza into the "simple cooking" category because it took too much planning ahead.  Right now, planning ahead is what helps me keep things simple...I'm not in the right stage of life for last minute trips to the store, so I really have to think ahead on our meals. The crust is probably biggest obstacle to making a pizza.  You can purchase store-bought balls of dough, dough in a can, or the already baked crusts.  Another option is to make your own dough. For me, this doesn't require an extra trip to the store, so I make our dough. My usual pizza dough is made with semolina and bread flours and has olive oil in it, to keep it from being too sticky.  One of my favorite things about this recipe is that I can make quite a bit of it at one time and freeze the  extra dough in balls.  I just make sure to take the dough out of the freezer the night before I make the pizza and let it thaw in the fridge.
Once you've found the right crust for you and your family (store bought or homemade), the fun part of picking the toppings comes next.  My daughter loves cheese pizza and my son loves pepperoni pizza! Both of my kids really enjoy white pizza, which could easily be made with store-bought alfredo sauce. Buffalo chicken pizza and black bean tostada pizza are nice for "grown-ups" and more adventurous kids. I really wasn't expecting my son to like bacon and egg pizza (I left the onions off of his side), so I didn't make enough for him when I made it! He was in the middle of a growth spurt the last time I made it and was already eating more bacon and eggs than he usually does. I guess combining them with pizza was the perfect recipe for a growing 5 year old.
I have a few other pizza ideas that I haven't tried yet. The first idea is for Thai chicken pizza, using the peanut sauce from my favorite stir-fry recipe, chicken, shredded carrots, mushrooms, and mozzarella cheese.  My second idea is for Cajun chicken pizza. It would use the creole sauce, sausage, veggies, and cheeses from my pasta jambalaya recipe.
Now that you are hungry, go make some pizza! Be creative with the toppings. Trendy pizza restaurants don't have to follow "the rules," and neither do you :)