pizza bites

This recipe came out of a kick I’ve been on lately of cleaning out the ingredients in my refrigerator and pantry. It was lunch time and I wanted something different for lunch but not something huge and filling. I started scrounging around and found I had some ingredients for a basic pizza, minus the pizza crust but I had a loaf of take and bake bread.

The wheels in my brain started spinning and I decided to try using the unbaked take and bake bread baguette loaf, cut it into a couple of 1/2 pieces, top it with my pizza toppings and throw it in the toaster oven. I absolutely could not believe how wonderful it turned out, and so I thought I’d share this very, very simple recipe with you.

These bites are great for a light lunch, a snack, or even a meal. For example, for over a year now some friends of mine and I have been playing cards and games every Monday. Each week we take turns hosting. We got into the habit of making lunch before we started our games and as you can well imagine that got my juices flowing as to how I could use these wonderful friends as guinea pigs for recipes for this blog. I let them know that was my intent and they said they were all in. So, last Monday I made these bites along with a side salad and a crudités plate of mozzarella sticks wrapped in salami and blue cheese stuffed olives. The lunch was a hit.

Mozzarella Sticks Wrapped In Salami And Blue Cheese Stuffed Olives

Simple Side Salad

Sausage Pizza Bites

Pesto and Pepperoni Pizza Bites

The most time consuming thing about this meal was assembling the pizza bites. The wrapped mozzarella and stuffed olives were store bought and there’s nothing to putting together a simple salad. And now, since I’ve had these bites both for a snack and a meal I thought maybe I should write about them.

So, with all that being said, let’s talk homemade pizza bites…

Lesson Learned 1 – Use whatever pizza ingredients you may have on hand: I used pesto, pepperoni, sausage, mozzarella slices and shredded mozzarella, grated parmesan, pizza sauce and Italian seasoning. One thing to be aware of, these bites only need 7-10 minutes to cook so if you add sausage it must be precooked. I thought about adding some green pepper but I didn’t this time. I probably will try it at some point, but I know I’ll need to cut the pieces very small so they at least partially cook. I like green pepper with a crunch on my pizza anyway.

Lesson Learned 2 – Forget measurements: You’ll notice this recipe doesn’t have any type of measurements for the ingredients. What you need will depend on how many bites you make and what ingredients you have on hand. I designed this recipe to be a way to use up ingredients you have laying around in your refrigerator or pantry.

Lesson Learned 3 – Use take and bake bread: The key, at least for me, was the take and bake bread. Take and bake bread is designed to be baked for about 10 minutes so it coincides with the overall baking time of the bites. Using this type of bread gave the bites a beautiful crispy crust which, for me, made it more like a Detroit style pizza which I just love.

Lesson Learned 4 – Make sure you bakes the bites on a wire rack: You want to make the bread nice and crispy. Baking them on a wire rack allows the bottom of the bread to cook and crisp up. Make sure you use a foil lined pan underneath the rack to catch any melted cheese that may run off the bread. That way you won’t have an oven mess that’s hard to clean up.

So give this throw together recipe a try. It only takes a few minutes to make a quick lunch. And if you’re making a bigger batch, count on about 20 minutes to prep them all. I know you’ll just love them. I know I do! Let me know what you think…

Homemade Pizza Bites

Servings: Varied
Time: 7-10 Minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Print

INGREDIENTS:

Store bought or homemade pesto

Pepperoni, sliced thin

Mozzarella, slices and shredded

Precooked Italian Sausage

Homemade or Store Bought Pizza Sauce

Unbaked Take And Bake Baguette Bread

Italian Seasoning

Basil Leaves For Garnish, optional

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Cut the take and bake bread into 1/2 inch slices cut on the bias. Top with either pesto or pizza sauce (you’ll probably need about a teaspoon for each slice). Put a slice of mozzarella on each piece of bread, pre-cut to size. Place two pieces of pepperoni on top of the bite that has pesto. Place crumbles of pre-cooked sausage on top of the bite that has pizza sauce. (Of course you can switch them around anyway you like, I’m just explaining what I did).

Top each bite with shredded mozzarella. Sprinkle each bite with some Italian seasoning. Add some grated parmesan over the tops of each slice.

Place each bite on a wire rack with a foil lined pan underneath it. Bake in oven or toaster oven for 7-10 minutes. Garnish each with some fresh basil. Enjoy!

Bread Slices With Pesto And Pizza Sauce

Oven Ready Pesto Bite

Oven Ready Sausage Bite

It’s been really hot here recently, averaging temperatures in the upper eighties and lower nineties. The one good thing about living in this part of the country is there is relatively little humidity so even though the days are hot the mornings and evenings tend to be gorgeous. But even with that I find that often I look for ways to make things that won’t heat up the kitchen or the house.

As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, we have a group of residents that get together every Thursday for happy hour. We meet in our outdoor pavilion, bring what we want to drink and many people bring appetizers or finger food. We drink, eat, talk and have a grand old time.

I try to bring some kind of new nibble for people to enjoy each week. I have to admit there are times when I just don’t have the energy to make something and so I’ll buy some chips and salsa or something like that. But there are also times I like to try something new and see if it works so that I can blog about it. This particular recipe came into my mind out of the blue and it went over very very well.

With weather this hot you really don’t want to be eating anything too hot, especially when you’re eating outdoors. It just doesn’t seem to work. But even in the hot sticky weather you still get a taste for something like pizza. You just don’t want to heat up your house making it. So how to you get around that?

Most people like cold pizza, right? It’s the combination of flavors and not necessarily the melting cheese that makes a pizza special. So I put together an appetizer that brings together all the flavors of pizza without being hot and all on a bite size cracker. I knew I succeeded when a little girl ate one of them and said, “Wow, pizza!”

And making these couldn’t be any easier. So let’s talk no bake pizza bites…

Lesson Learned 1 – Go ahead and be creative with this recipe: I had some leftover pepperoni in the refrigerator that I wanted to use. The rest I put together as I walked through the specialty cheese section of my grocery store. You can vary the meat (or not use it at all), the cheese, the crackers – whatever you want. You’ll still come up with a great little appetizer.

Lesson Learned 2 – I used pre-made roasted tomatoes: In the specialty cheese section I found some roasted tomatoes marinated in garlic olive oil. Bingo! The package had about 7 ounces of roasted tomatoes that I diced up and put on top of the pepperoni. It was fabulous. If you can’t find them pre-made you can roast tomatoes yourself and then let them marinate in some olive oil. You’ll still get the same result. But this was a whole lot less work and gave the bites a great flavor!

Lesson Learned 3 – I used a specialty feta cheese: You can certainly use plain feta cheese but I found a roasted pepper and basil feta cheese and I decided to use that. What I liked about this choice was that it added the flavor of basil to the appetizer without having to use basil leaves. You could certainly use basil leaves as well. If you do I would put the basil leaf on top of the pepperoni and then put the tomatoes on top of that. That way the leaf is secured. The great thing about this appetizer is that you can be creative and it will still be fabulous!

Lesson Learned 4 – Right before serving drizzle the bites with some garlic infused olive oil: This is the finishing touch that adds so much. You don’t need a lot, just a slight drizzle over them and the olive oil just adds that special touch that rounds out all the flavors. You can also use the oil that the roasted tomatoes were packed in, but that may not be enough for all the rounds. I had to use both the oil from the tomatoes and some garlic olive oil to drizzle over all the rounds.

And that’s it. Layer the ingredients, drizzle them with some olive oil before serving and watch them disappear. Enjoy!

No Bake Pizza Bites...

Servings: Approximately 30 Rounds
Time: 15 Minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Print

INGREDIENTS

1 box crackers, preferably round and not overly thin

Pepperoni, pre-packaged or a log you can cut into rounds

1 container of fire roasted tomatoes approx. 7 ounces

Feta cheese (I used a roasted red pepper and basil feta)

Garlic infused olive oil, for drizzling.

DIRECTIONS:

Dice the fire roasted tomatoes into small pieces. Lay out the crackers on a large plate or 9 x 13 baking sheet. Place a slice of pepperoni on each cracker. Top the pepperoni with some of the fire roasted tomatoes. Crumble the feta cheese and sprinkle pieces over each round.

Right before serving drizzle with oil. You could used the oil that was used to pack the tomatoes. If that is not enough, drizzle the remaining with the garlic infused olive oil.