Tortilla Pepperoni Pizzas [Recipe]

We made these one night my husband was gone — and the recipe comes from one of my favorite cookbooks SOS! The Six O’clock Scramble to the Rescue. I usually top homemade pizza with veggies but Big A is always asking for pepperoni. I like to show her that her food preferences matter to me (without catering of course). And it helped that the recipe called for pepperoni. Instead of taco size tortillas we used large whole grain ones and only made two.

Big A helped me prepare these. The recipe suggests serving it with fruit smoothies. Our blender broke so I served it with fresh fruit and carrot sticks. A big hit and super easy. So the next time you want homemade pizza and don’t have time to make dough, consider making tortilla pizzas!

Serves: 8

Ingredients:
-2 TBS olive oil
-1/2 tsp garlic powder
-8 small to medium (soft-taco-size) whole wheat or four tortillas
-1/2 cup tomato-basil flavored pasta sauce
-1.5 cups reduced fat shredded mozzarella cheese, or to taste
-4 ounces sliced pepperoni (traditional, turkey, or veggie), or toppings of your choice

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a small bowl, combine the oil and garlic powder. Using a pastry brush, coat each tortilla with a thin layer of garlic oil. Spread a thin layer about (1 TBS) of sauce on each tortilla, and sprinkle them with cheese. Top them with pepperoni (or a very thin layer of toppings of your choice).

For a crispy crust, carefully transfer the tortilla pizzas directly to the oven rack and cook them for 3 to 4 minutes. For a softer crust, cook them on a baking sheet coated with nonstick cooking spray for 4 to 6 minutes (Meanwhile make the smoothies.) Remove the pizzas from the oven when the tortillas start to brown on the edges — watch them carefully so they don’t burn!

Side dish suggestion: To make Strawberry-banana smoothie, in a blender puree 2 cups fresh or frozen strawberries, 2 ripe bananas, 1 cup orange juice and 1 cup nonfat vanilla or plain yogurt.