Got Spinach? Kid-Friendly Pizza Recipe With Spinach (Shhh...)

Veggies and my kids do not mix well. Pretty much they avoid each other as much as possible. So being the conscientious and wonderful pearls-around-my-neck sort of mother that I am, (what? did I push it too hard??) I try to find kid-friendly recipes where I can sneak in a veggie or two and get the satisfaction of seeing my kiddos eat said food. I also resort to bribery. But that is a different story for a different post.


So in perusing the web, I found this yummy sounding homemade pizza recipe with spinach.

Yes. I know.

My anti-veggie kids eating spinach, of all things vegetable??

But somehow I think this might be worth a try. After all, there is gooey white cheese melted all over that spinach. Four kinds of white cheese. (yea, I know cheese is not the healthiest thing going either-- I practically wrote a dissertation on cheese after all, remember?)

So I am going to try this recipe out tonight (watch for my results and my kids' verdict coming soon!) If you are so inclined to try this out with your kids, I would love to hear your results too!

  Four Cheese White Pizza (from Family Circle)

Ingredients

• 2  tablespoons  olive oil
• 4  cloves  garlic, coarsely chopped
• 1  bag (6 ounces)  baby spinach
• 1  pound  pizza dough, at room temperature, or one batch Basic Pizza Dough (find the recipe on familycircle.com)
• 1  cup  shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/2  cup  shredded provolone cheese
• 1/2  cup  shredded Asiago cheese
• 3/4  cup  ricotta cheese
• 2  tablespoons  toasted pine nuts

Directions

1. Heat oven to 500 degrees F. Coat a 14-inch pizza pan with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a medium-size nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add garlic and cook 30 seconds. Gradually add spinach and cook until wilted, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat.
3. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough into a 14-inch circle. Gently roll up onto a lightly floured rolling pin and unroll onto prepared pizza pan.
4. In a medium-size bowl, mix together mozzarella, provolone and Asiago cheeses. Sprinkle half of the cheese mixture over the dough. Evenly spoon the spinach over the cheese. Drizzle any oil and garlic from the skillet over the spinach. Sprinkle the remaining cheese mixture over the spinach. Dollop tablespoons of the ricotta cheese over top. Drizzle remaining tablespoon olive oil over the pizza. Bake at 500 degrees F for 14 to 15 minutes or until nicely browned on bottom. Remove from oven.
5. To serve, scatter pine nuts over the top and cut into 8 slices.

So I am thinking we will skip the pine nuts, but the rest sounds pretty good. If my kids ask, that green stuff under the melted cheese is an herb. A nice yummy green herb.

Spinach? Who ever heard of putting spinach on pizza? (That's my story, and I will be sticking to it!)