Southwest Pizza

I've been a bit un-motivated about cooking this summer (to say the least). After helping to cook for 30-50 people every day at Bear Lake (where we ate like kings thanks to so many great ideas from so many great cooks - read details here on my mom's blog), I just needed a break and we all felt content with pretty simple stuff - pasta and red sauce, beans and rice, tuna sandwiches, that sort of thing . . .

But I'm getting back into the swing of more tasty and imaginative food now. Especially since several of the kids set summer goals involving learning to make a meal and they've only got this week to finish their goals.

Here's a new favorite we came up with one day last week when we were trying to be creative with what we had in the fridge. It was super easy and an instant favorite and we'll be making it again and again!

SOUTHWEST PIZZA

This picture shows you most of what you need to know but some instructions are below.

Ingredients:

• Pizza dough (make some or buy some already made, can also use pre-cooked pita bread as a pizza crust and have everyone make their own little pizza)
• Your favorite salsa
• Queso fresca (crumbly white Mexican cheese) or whatever cheese you want
• corn (frozen or canned, whatever you've got)
• a can of black beans (drained)
• chopped cilantro (as much as you want)

You could also add some canned green chile peppers (mild or hot, your choice), grilled chicken, taco meat, sliced green or red peppers, etc.

Directions:

• spray cookie sheet/baking tray generously with cooking spray
• stretch out dough nice and thin into a circle/oval (you can roll it out but just stretching it out by hand works well for me)
• spread on salsa
• top with cheese, beans, corn, cilantro, whatever else you want
• cook at 425 for about 12-15 minutes or until crust edges are golden and cheese is melted. You might need to use a paper towel to soak up extra liquid if your salsa/corn is extra liquidy (I had to).