5 yr old making pizza

Pizza is a staple in our house. Every Friday night is pizza night.  I usually make up dough on Friday afternoon for Friday night pizza. But we love pizza and calzones for snacks and quick meals as well. 

Here’s our favorite pizza sauce recipe along with a few easy ways to serve up quick pizza snacks:

Favorite Pizza Sauce Recipe

1 6 oz. can of tomato paste
6 oz. water
1 tsp of powdered garlic (for garlic lovers – fresh chopped garlic is wonderful as well)
1 tsp of Italian herbs
Honey to taste (1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon, depending on your taste)

In a bowl or saucepan, combine tomato paste, water, garlic, Italian herbs, and honey. If you are in a hurry, use immediately. If not, heat over low-medium heat to infuse flavors.  Freeze any extra for future use.

Pizza Snack Ideas:

Bagel pizzas: Smear on ½ bagel or mini-bagel and sprinkle with cheese. Heat until cheese is melted

French bread pizzas: Slice French bread open horizontally. Spread sauce over bread. Sprinkle with toppings and cheese. Heat until cheese is melted.

Calzones: Use left-over pizza dough - or other premade pizza dough. Spray a pan with non-stick spray or a light dose of olive oil. Break dough into about 2 inch balls and flatten each with the heel of your hand. On one half of each, place 1T of pizza sauce, cheese, and other favorite topping ingredients. Fold over and pinch the edges together. Cook in a preheated oven at 450 for about 15-20 minutes (depends on the size of your calzones).

(These supposedly freeze well but I’ve never been able to try it because they get eaten so fast at our house.)

One of my favorite flavor combinations are bananas and chocolate. And consequently, I find different ways to put these two together – like this Banana Chocolate Chip muffin recipe. It’s adapted from The New Laurel’s Kitchen cookbook, modified to meet my needs, depending on what I have on hand.

These are yummy and healthy (especially if you use 60% cocoa dark chocoate chips instead of milk or semi-sweet chocolate).  And they freeze well.

Ingredients:
3 very ripe bananas (~ 1 cup mashed)
Juice of 1 lemon (I use 3 Tablespoons of lemon juice)
1/3 cup oil or butter (I use butter or olive oil)
1/2 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup wheat germ

~ 1/2 of a 12oz bag of chocolate chips (60% cocoa dark chocoate is the healthiest, but I’ve also milk chocoate and semi-sweet, depending who I’m making them for and their preference.)

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 375F.

Mash bananas and mix them with lemon juice until smooth. (If you have a
stand mixer – just mix the whole bananas and lemon juice until smooth)

Cream butter or oil and sugar together and add to the banana mix, stirring
well. (I soften the butter and put it in the mixer with the sugar and banana
mix and stir well.)

Sift together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Mix in wheat
germ. (I just mix it all together in a separate bowl.) Add to banana mix.
Stir until mixed (DON’T OVERSTIR – just mix together until all ingredients
are moist.)

Gently stir in chocolate chips.

Makes 12 cupcakes (cook for 30 minutes) or 1 loaf of banana bread (cook for 45 minutes)
To test for doneness, insert a knife into the loaf or cupcakes. If it comes
out clean, it’s done.

Tip: When you have left over bananas that are starting to turn, just throw them into the freezer peel and all for the next time you want to make this or another banana bread/muffin recipe. Then when you are ready to use them, use the microwave to defrost them up so you can peel and mash the bananas.

Another Tip: To increase the fiber factor in muffins, try replacing 1/4 or 1/2 cup of the flour with Bob’s Red Mill Organic High Fiber Cereal mix. I’ve been doing this with pancakes, waffles, muffins, and rolls with great success and it really boosts the fiber content and adds the Omega-3s from the flax seed. Yummy and healthier!

Enjoy!
—Shannon

You might also like:

• Easy & Healthy Chocolate Muffin Recipe

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Sundays are usually an at-home day for us. This is a quiet recharge kind of day. One of my favorite things we do sometimes is cooking together. I’ll start cooking something for the coming week and someone will ask “Can I help?”.  And so we spend the next little bit engaged in conversation and activity making or baking something.

One of our latest favorites is a very simple and fast recipe originally from the Hungry Girl cookbook. We call these Chocolate Muffins but Hungry Girl calls them “Yum Yum Brownie Muffins”. My 11 year old made the one in the picture for Christmas dessert and sometimes she makes them during the week for a special snack.

Ingredients

1 box of Devil’s Food Cake mix (or make your own mix – dry ingredients only)

1 15oz can of pumpkin, solid pack

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven for 400 degrees F (205 degrees Celsius) Spray your muffin or mini-muffin tin with non-stick spray or wipe gently with olive oil
2. In a mixing bowl, mix the dry cake mix with the can of pumpkin. (Do not add any other ingredients!) Mix until all the wet ingredients are wet with pumpkin. (It will look thick, but that’s okay.)
3. Fill your muffin tins and bake.  Regular size muffins cook for about 20 minutes. Mini-muffins cook for less time, depending on the size of your pan (you’ll need to check them to guage the time with your equipment).

This recipe is so yummy it’s hard to keep them in the house. They freeze well, but around here don’t tend to last that long.  And the best part is that they are relatively low calorie (compared to other muffins) and low fat, and have an extra boost of fiber and nutrition (esp. vitamin A) thanks to the pumpkin.

Side note: when we’ve been out of eggs or oil, we’ve used the pumpkin trick in other chocolate cake recipes too. Generally 1/4 cup pumpkin can be substituted for 1 egg or for the oil portion. I haven’t experiminted with it too much, but it definitely has worked each time we’ve tried it.  We’ve also used applesauce in place of oil in other muffin recipes. But pumpkin adds better nutrition and we like chocolate!

You May Also Like:

Yummy & Healthy Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

For more muffin recipes, check out these resources: