Garlic Pesto Mini Pizza Bites

Garlic Pesto Mini Pizza Bites are simple snacks prepared using pizza dough as cups and filled with Chicken stuffing.

Last week was a boring week and I was kinda tied up with some other work. Had little time to cook and to blog. So, most of the time, we had restaurant food rather then home made. Now we have decided not to go for outside food for at least for a month. I have told my son, whatever you want, tell me, I will prepare it for you.

BJ’s is one of our favorite restaurants and whenever we go there, we order for garlic pesto thin crust pizza. I have tried that pizza many times at home, till got it perfect. Usually I use Chicken in it , but even tried it with veggies and there wasn’t any difference in the taste. This time I made it fancy. Instead of preparing one whole pizza, I made small bite size pizzas. My son really enjoyed them.

As you know , I always go for easy and quick recipes, so prepared my topping with whatever veggies I had in refrigerator. The other day, my hubby had got lots of portabella mushrooms from central market and was wondering what to do about them. Also, there were bell peppers , so my work became all the more easy. For topping, I used all my veggies as mentioned, along with roasted, grated garlic and pesto sauce which gave it a unique flavor. I didn’t use anything for heat, but sometimes I add chili flakes over my topping before baking. But my kid prefer to add it later on his pizza , so I skipped . For preparing pizza dough , I used Fleischmann’s rapidrise yeast which requires just one rise. So the dough gets ready within 10 to 12 minutes.

Preparation time: 15 Minutes

Cooking Time: 20 Minutes

Serves : 3

Ingredients:

1 Whole garlic pod
1/2 Cup Shredded Mozarella cheese
3/4 Cup Shredded Cheddar Cheese
1/4 Cup Chopped Green bell pepper
1/4 Cup Chopped Red bell pepper
100 Grams chopped mushrooms( I used portabella)
1 Small onion chopped fine
1 Tablespoon olive oil
Pesto sauce
Salt

Ingredients for Pizza base:

1 3/4 – 2 Cups All purpose flour
1 Teaspoon Sugar
3/4 Teaspoon Salt
1 Envelope active instant dry yeast( I used Fleischmann’s rapidrise yeast)
2 Tablespoon oil
2/3 Cup very warm water

Method:

Sprinkle some salt over chopped bell peppers and keep aside.

Remove the garlic cloves from the pod and peel them off.

Press them hard with knife or any object so that they get crushed .

Heat a medium saucepan, add oil and roast the garlic on medium high heat until they darken a bit and gets softened. Remove on a plate and grate them.

Prepare pizza dough by mixing together flour, dry yeast, salt and sugar first.

Add oil.

Start adding warm water little at a time, mixing it simultaneously. Don’t add too much water at a time, otherwise the dough will be sticky. If you feel the dough is too sticky to knead, add little more dry flour and knead until the dough doesn’t stick to your fingers and you can comfortably knead it. Knead well for about 4-5 minutes. Cover and keep aside for 10 minutes.

Dust the dough with some dry flour and the surface where you will be rolling your dough.

With the rolling pin, roll the dough into a very thin disk. Using a sharp edged small bowl or a round cookie cutter, remove the small discs out from the bigger one as shown in the picture.