#WildernestMealPrep: Veggie packed pizza with a greek yogurt crust

Last week, the babies had a dinner that could determine they are their father’s babies better than a paternity test - homemade pizza!

I was inspired to make a baby-friendly sauce last week and figured it would go good with spaghetti, a classic baby meal and one ours have yet to try (they’ve only had pastas). While searching the web for a home made recipe, I switched gears and thought using it for pizza would be way more fun.

I’ll start by being honest here - this was the longest meal I’ve made prep time wise, but I believe it would have gone a lot faster had I had a few fancy kitchen gadgets I haven’t bothered to buy. I also spent a good chunk of time scouring my house for something to use as a rolling pin, as mine has upped and walked away, until remembering the left over pieces of wooden dowel we had from the baby gym my husband made. I’d say total time spent prepping was a little over 2 hours, then another 1 hour cooking and portioning out each meal, but so worth it to me for an entire pizza made from scratch!

I started making things a little earlier than normal because I knew the recipe called for all the veggies to be finely chopped, which is a huge time sink when you’re someone without one of those food processors (the main culprit for extended prep time). I chopped in-between chasing a tiny tornado, refereeing paci steals, and getting things ready for their actual dinner that night before having to put it on hold, but got through about half of them.

The great thing about this sauce is that you can load it with all sorts of veggies, but it will still always have that well-loved tomatoey taste kids typically enjoy. Our babies have yet to be apprehensive to much of anything, but I’m aware this most likely won’t always be the case once they hit toddlerhood and form opinions. So having this recipe on hand will surely help me in the future.

Once the babies were down for the night, I picked up where I left off - finishing up the veggies and tossing them into a large saucepan with olive oil to start the simmering. While neither of the recipes I was gathering instructions from (I often combine a few) called for beans, I happened to have a few cans in my pantry and decided to toss in half a can of white ones - this gave the sauce some extra protein and would later thicken the consistency a bit.

After about 20 minutes of simmering the vegetables, it was time to add in all the tomato pieces and water. I was told to only put in 1tbsp of the tomato paste, but ended up throwing half a can in there because I wanted a thicker sauce. Once it was all in, it was time to let it simmer another 20 minutes while I went to make dough and chicken sausage.

This dough continues to amaze me with how delicious it was, not to mention it was only a couple of ingredients (most of which people usually have on hand as a pantry staple). I started by googling baby pizza dough and went down a rabbit hole of trying to find recipes that didn’t require yeast or self-rising flour because all I had on hand was the all-purpose kind and zero yeast.

After taking bits and pieces from different sources, I found a combination that worked and turned out delicious too. All I needed was the all purpose flour, baking soda and a bit of salt to help with the whole rising thing, and plain greek yogurt, which I happened to have bought a ton of as part of lunch for the babies. The only problem? My greek yogurt was vanilla. I’m no cook/baker, and wasn’t sure if the vanilla would make the whole thing explode, but when I couldn’t find anything advising me against it I just went with it. YOLO.

Well ladies and gents, if you want a crust with a little bit of sweetness to it, go vanilla! From what I can tell, it didn’t make any negative impact on the outcome.

Since I’ve never actually made dough before, I wasn’t sure how much I would need in order to make enough pizza to last an entire week. I ended up doubling the recipe I was sort of basing things off of and got two 15”x10” thin crust cookie sheet pizzas out of it. Turns out one would have been enough to last the week, so we had extra for my husband and I.

It was easy enough to actually make - mix all the ingredients, throw down some flour on a counter, roll around, kneed, and roll out with a rolling pin. I brushed my baking sheet with olive oil and placed the dough on top.

With the dough done and the sauce almost ready, all that was left was the chicken sausage. Had I had actual sausage I would have used that, as I like to give the triplets a variety of meat and they just had chicken the previous week, but it was all I had with the current meat shortage so I went with it. I chopped it up super tiny, threw it in a frying fan with some olive oil, and it was browned in a couple of minutes.

At this point, it was time to puree the sauce. Since this recipe makes SO much of it, I had to blend it in portions. I scooped it into the Baby Bullet, blended for a couple of seconds, and threw it in a glass bowl while I repeated these steps a few more times.

Finally, everything was ready for the pizza! How much sauce you want on your pizza is up to you, but with all the veggies packed in there I decided to go a little heavy on it. I used a bagged Mexican blend of cheese, but decided to go light on this because the bagged cheeses usually have an absurd amount of sodium. Next time, I’ll get some block cheeses to grate my own for extra baby healthiness. Lastly, I sprinkled the chicken sausage on and baked for 11 minutes in the oven at 475 degrees. Since the first one came out a little less soft than I would have liked, I baked the second pizza for 8 minutes and thought it was much better.

I let the pizzas cool and then used a pizza cutter to cut into tiny baby bite-sized chunks for serving. Each baby gets 1/4-1/2 cup of food per meal, which when combined x3, usually fills up one of my smaller tuppaware containers. So I portioned out 7 of those and cut the rest for the adults. There was no freezing necessary for any of these, as they stayed good in the fridge for the week.

It’s safe to say the babies enjoyed this meal from the start, and are definitely their dad’s babies haha.

homemade pizza with veggie sauce and greek yogurt crust

SERVES
Makes 2 pizzas and LOTS of sauce

INGREDIENTS
For the sauce

• 2 tbsp olive oil

• 2 onions, finely chopped

• 1 tsp minced garlic

• 10 baby carrots, finely chopped

• 2 bell peppers, finely chopped

• 1 zucchini, finely chopped

• 1/2 can of white beans

• 3 cans of diced tomatoes

• 2/3 can of tomato paste

• 2 cups of water

For the dough:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 3 teaspoons baking powder

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 2 cups plain (or vanilla for sweetness) greek yogurt

For the toppings:

• 1 package of Italian style chicken sausage, chopped

• Fine layer of Mexican blend (or any blend) cheese

METHOD
For the sauce, heat the oil in a LARGE saucepan, over a medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, peppers, zucchini, and beans and cook for about 20 minutes. Continuously stir them so they don’t burn.

After 20 minutes, add the tomatoes, tomato paste, and water. Stir until combined. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and allow to simmer for another 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Allow them to cool a little, then blend them together until smooth.

To make the dough, mix the flour, salt, and baking powder in a large mixing bowl. Add in the Greek yogurt, switch over to a rubber spatula and stir until combined. It should be sticky and just like any other dough consistency.

Generously flour a clean surface and kneed the dough a little. Flour a rolling pin and roll out the dough thin.

Transfer to a baking sheet that has been sprayed or brushed with olive oil and preheat your oven to 475°

To make the chicken sausage, chop up the entire package in small bite-sized pieces and toss in a large frying pan with a bit of olive oil. These are already fully cooked, so just mix them around until they’ve browned.

Use a ladle or spoon to scoop a generous amount of sauce on to the dough and spread it around to the edges. Add in your desired amount of cheese and then the chicken sausage on top.

Bake on the bottom rack for 8 to 11 minutes depending on your stove and size of your pizza.

For my leftover sauce, I put it in plastic baggies and stuck it in the freezer for spaghetti later!