Saturday, July 10, 2010

Vegetable Ninja

Ben has developed a taste for cheese pizza, like many kids his age, so I decided to make my own for him--a tad more healthy. I call it "sneaky cheese pizza" because I snuck in the healthy stuff and he didn't even know it. Once it had cooled, I gave him a bite, and he threw a fit begging for more. He actually started crying when he saw me eat some--he wants it all for himself.

Here's the recipe. I stored the leftover sauce in the fridge to go on pasta.

Sneaky Cheese Pizza

You could probably add any kind of vegetable puree to the tomato sauce, but I choose carrots and beets because their natural sweetness (especially when roasted) complimented the tomatoes.

2 carrots, peeled and cut in chunks
1 beet, peeled (I always roast extra beets to put in my salad.)
fresh basil
1 can no-salt-added whole tomatoes, drained
whole wheat pizza dough (I bought Hannaford's whole wheat pizza dough, but you could make your own.)
olive oil
cornmeal
freshly shredded mozzarella

Drizzle carrots and beets with olive oil and put in separate foil packets (the beets take longer to cook). Cook in 450-degree oven until soft, about 40 minutes for carrots and 1 hour for beets. Cool and puree in a blender with the tomatoes and some chopped basil. Add a dash of salt if desired.

Divide dough into 4 pieces and stretch/roll it out. Generously coat cookie sheets in olive oil and sprinkle with some cornmeal. Put dough on sheets and prick with a fork; bake at 425 degrees for 5-8 minutes until it starts to lightly brown on the underside. Cover dough with sauce and shredded mozzarella and bake at 425 for 5-8 more minutes.

I froze 3 of the 4 pizzas--hopefully they will bake up just as tasty as the fresh one Ben had for lunch today!

1 comment:

Jackamo said...

Glad this worked out for you! Sounds good. I used to do the same thing...except the lazy, not as good version. I would buy carrot baby food and mix it in to the pizza sauce. Always worked! Adding pureed squash to mac-n-cheese worked well too.