Pizza Bites...Thin Crust Pizza Revisited

Pizza Bites....Thin Crust Pizza Revisited. I recently made these little bites and they were great. Perfect as an appetizer. Sometimes I want a different sort of appetizer. This was it! Do you remember the post on Thin Crust Pizza ? You don't!? :) Well, this uses the same method. Really, if you haven't tried the original recipe yet, you should...at least once. It comes together in no time and it is a great alternative to a store-bought thin crust pizza. This recipe for pizza bites came to me as I was making the Tomato Puff Pastry Bites. I loved the puff pastry bites and thought, why not make them out of flour tortillas? This would be ideal if you don't have any puff pastry in the freezer. So, this is the result of an idea I had. Don't you ever lay awake at night thinking how to perfect/change a recipe? Well, sometimes I do...not everything comes out the way I intend it to be. Other times, they do...this was one of them! Feel free to make them whatever size you like...mine were about 2 inches. For this post, I used soft taco size(8 inch) flour tortillas to get about 5 (2 inch) bites. I had leftover scrap tortilla which I turned into baked tortilla strips. No use in wasting food. They were great as a snack and as a topping for tortilla/bean soups. Hope you like them.

You will need:

flour tortillas(any size)

mozzarella cheese (or any good melting cheese)

olive oil (for brushing flour tortillas)

favorite toppings(onion, diced tomato,bell peppers, olives, meats, herbs, etc)

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Brush some olive oil on both sides of the tortillas.

Cut into small circles(or whatever size you prefer).

Sprinkle some cheese.

Top with second tortilla.

Sprinkle some more cheese and add toppings.

Be careful not to place too many toppings...it can get too heavy and fall off. I sprinkle some extra cheese to keep the toppings in place.

Bake in a preheated 500 deg. oven for 6-10 minutes. Keep an eye on them you don't want them to burn. just crisp up and have the cheese melted.

If you want to make some tortilla strips out of the tortilla scraps, you will need to cut the scraps into strips and drizzle some olive oil over them. Toss them so that they will all be coated with the olive oil. After you are done baking the pizza bites, turn off the oven and place the strips on a baking sheet(the oven will still be hot)...try to place in a single layer without having them overlap. You don't need to have the oven turned on, the lingering heat(from previous baking) in the oven will bake them. Just check them often so that they won't burn. They should be nicely browned and crispy.