Sandwich Round Shrimp and Spinach Pizzas

Have you ever seen those frozen Elmo oraginc Pizzas? I have and they are EXPENSIVE! I'd give them to the triplets if someone else was paying for them, but no one seems to be stepping up to the plate on that one ;)

I decided to make some, after I discovered that sandwich rounds make great toddler pizza crust.

Let's get into why in the heck I had sandwich rounds in the first place... You see here in TN WIC is easy to get. When you're in the military and have three kids WIC is even easier to get. The deal is they don't count hardly any of our paycheck as income. No housing allowance, no food allowance, and no "special pays". That means that they roughly don't count almost half of our paycheck. While I do feel somewhat guilty getting WIC because of this, this is true all over the nation. The military is underpaid as it is, and contrary to popular belief you do not get paid any extra when you have children. I see it as a supplement to our already ridiculously low pay for what my husband does. Also, there are many states that automatically will allow triplets to be on WIC regardless of income. I encourage anyone with multiples to at least try.

That being said, sandwich rounds are a WIC item. So with three toddlers I get up to 6 packages a month! That's a lot of bread.... and if you haven't noticed toddlers don't like plain bread... so I've gotten creative.

You will need:

1 package of sandwich rounds

1 cup of Alfredo sauce (mix or jar)

1/4 of a cup of pesto sauce (mix or jar)

1 cup of chopped spinach fresh or thawed

1/4 of a cup of feta cheese crumbles (optional)

1/4 of a cup of green pepper, frozen or fresh (optional)

1 cup of mozzarlla cheese (I grate my own)

4oz of salad shrimp

First place the sandwich rounds with the inside bread down.

Next, add about 1 tablespoon per pizza of Alfredo sauce mix and spread into a circle. Add a teaspoon of pesto and spread evenly into the Alfredo. You can use the jar or sauce mix variety. I never use the whole packet, so I just save whatever is left over and defrost in the microwave when I need it.

Next, add 1 tablespoon of mozzarella cheese.

Add about 8 tiny salad shrimp per pizza. I bought a frozen 4 oz bag for $2 at Kroger.

Then, add about 1 tablespoon of chopped spinach per pizza. It comes frozen in bad for about $1 if you don't have fresh. If you use frozen thaw it in the microwave and squeeze of the water before adding to the pizza.

I also added 1 teaspoon of green pepper to each pizza. This is not necessary and was even pushing my kids in their acquired tastes, but if you think you're kids might eat it, by all means add it! I bought a bag of green pepper for $1 and just added it straight from the bag.

Put the pizza's in a preheated 400 degree oven for 5 minutes.

After five minutes, remove and add 1 teaspoon of feta cheese per pizza.

Heat for another five minutes, and you have a meal to feed you toddler that contains food from 4 food groups! Add some fruit and make it 5 food groups!

The best part of making it is how easy it is to store. Remember the sandwich round bag you saved? Grab that and some wax paper. Cut the wax paper to the width of the bag and place a piece on the counter. 

Next, place two pizzas on the paper. 

Place a piece of wax paper over top of these pizzas and  stack another row of pizzas. Do this until you have three rows of pizzas and a piece of wax paper under the bottom pizza and over the top pizza. Then just cut off the end of the wax paper, and put the pizza stacks in the sandwich round bag. You can also use small zip lock bags and just have one row of pizzas instead of two. 

Throw them in the freezer and they should keep for about 2 months. To reheat, use a toaster over or regular oven at 350* for 10 minutes. 

Here's the grocery list to make 12 mini pizzas:

1 package of sandwich rounds

1 cup of Alfredo sauce (mix or jar)

1/4 of a cup of pesto sauce (mix or jar)

1 cup of chopped spinach fresh or thawed

1/4 of a cup of feta cheese crumbles

1/4 of a cup of green pepper, frozen or fresh

1 cup of mozzarlla cheese (I grate my own)

4oz of salad shrimp

Mexican for Toddlers in 30 Seconds!

I love the idea of the Gerber Graduates meals. I mean, 30 seconds in the microwave and dinner is done? No way! I actually started out buying them for the triplets when they were around 9 months.

Back then one meal would feed all three of them, and then I would feed them fruit as dessert. I always knew they weren't the healthiest, but quite frankly I wasn't motivated to change until the triplets decided one meal was NOT enough for the three of them. My dinner costs were up to $5 a meal. That's just way too much for my tastes. Then, one afternoon I decided to make my own meals and I haven't stopped since! I usually make several at a time and feed them through out the week for lunch, dinner, and even breakfast. I scoop out what I need, microwave, and Ta-Dah! 30 second toddler meals homemade!

I buy these handy dandy Glad storage containers from the Dollar Store for 3 for $2. There is a divider in the container for smaller portions of food, sides, dips, etc. I wash them in the dishwasher and heat them in the microwave and have yet to have a problem.

You will need:

Cheddar Cheese

Fiesta/Mexican Style Frozen Vegetables

Can of Black Beans

Ro-Tel

Brown Rice

The easiest a quickest meal I make is my Mexican Fiesta dish. First, I start by making a 1/2 of a cup of cooked brown or white rice. We all know brown is better, so you should probably make the leap :) I make the leap and cook it on the stove most times, but you can can cook it just as well on the microwave. Add the rice to the large part of your storage container. Once, the rice is done cooking reuse your pot on the stove and boil 2 cups of water.

I then add 1/2 of a can or 8 oz of black beans.

Next, add 1/3 of a can or 4 oz. of Ro-Tel or Salsa.

Next, in the same pan that you cooked your rice, add a 2/3 of bag of fiesta or Mexican style frozen vegetables. I used Mexican Style this time and it contained: corn, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and red peppers.

I then added 1 cup of frozen diced chicken to the boiling water, but you can also use 1 cup of browned ground beef without needing to boil.

Continue boiling for 2 minutes. During this time, if you don't buy grated cheese, grate 1 1/2 cups of cheddar cheese. Add the cheese to the smaller portion of your storage container.

Remove the pot from the stove (or microwave if you couldn't bring yourself to use the stove) drain the water, and add to the large part of the storage container.

Mix the contents together in the large portion of the container and you have yourself some toddler Mexican food! I simply scoop out what I need for each meal, sprinkle a little cheese on top. Heat in the microwave for 30 seconds, and I have dinner! These can also be frozen and saved for later!

Here's the version made with ground meat instead of chicken!

Grocery List:

Cheddar Cheese

Fiesta/Mexican Style Frozen Vegetables

Can of Black Beans

Ro-Tel

Brown Rice

Mini Chicken Alfredo Pizzas

Last night I was making what I call a "white" pizza for dinner when I had the most fantastic idea EVER. I knew that the five us sharing one pizza was probably going to end in my husband munching on snacks after dinner, so I decided to make mini pizzas for the triplets. I'd bought sandwich rounds for their Easter Benito but hadn't touched them since. Then it came to me, use the sandwich rounds as pizza crust!

I put them on a pan covered in foil...which in my book means I don't have to clean the pan just throw away the foil. Lazy? Yes! Time-saving? You betcha!

Next, I added Alfredo sauce. I buy the mix packets for 80 cents on sale. All you have to do is add butter, water and stir, but you can just as easily buy the jar. It just costs more $$. I usually make a packet and freeze what I don't use for the next time I need it. I don't buy for the brand, I buy for the price... like I've said before: We're not feeding food critics are we?

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Then add thawed frozen or fresh chopped spinach. Just enough to cover about 1/3 of each pizza.

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After the spinach, I added a layer of shredded mozzarella cheese. Just enough to cover the entire mini pizza, about 1/3 of a cup per pizza.

Next, add canned artichokes. Yes, all of my children ate them last night! So can yours ;) They're on the expensive side for my tastes, but I wait for them to go on sale and buy a few jars. I used about 1/2 of a heart per mini pizza. So about .30 cents worth didn't seem too bad to me...

Next, I added pieces of bacon and chicken. This is usually the most time consuming part of making these pizzas. When you use precooked bacon and diced chicken it doesn't take more than a minute in the microwave. The interesting thing I have found is that this kind of bacon is actually close to the same price as the regular bacon. Also, I can catch the bag of frozen chicken on sale for $4.99... that's in the neighborhood of .20 a ounce/ $3 a pound. Kind of on the $$ side but well worth the time it saves me. I used 1/3 of a piece of chopped bacon and 5 pieces of diced chicken per mini pizza.

This is what they looked like at this point.

I then put them in a preheated oven at 400* for 10 minutes.

And with 10 minutes of prep and 10 minutes of cooking. I had a healthy meal for my toddlers!

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I added cut fruit and frozen blueberries and my kids ate every bite

Grocery List:

Sandwich Rounds

Spinach

Bacon

Canned Artichokes

Frozen Chicken

Alfredo Mix

Cut Fruit

Mozzarella Cheese

Here's some pictures of my kids eating their pizza's last night just for fun. They loved it!

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