Chef Wendell: 'Kid’ Friendly English Muffin Pizza

Ingredients:

• 1 English muffin, whole grain, split
• About 1/3 cup of shredded skim-milk mozzarella cheese
  (use a different cheese, or even more than one cheese at a time)
• Sliced garden tomato or 2 Tbs. tomato or pizza sauce
• Fake Sausage, chorizo or mock pepperoni
• Toppings: lightly sautéed spinach, mushrooms, green peppers, onions or fresh pineapple chunks.

Directions:

1. After fork-slicing the English muffin, place the sliced tomatoes or sauce and then the mozzarella cheese on each half of the English muffin.
2. Apply the sauce with a spoon or add fresh tomato slices. Go edge to edge.
3. Now’s the time to sneak in some ground flax seeds. They’ll never know.
4. Next, add a meat substitute or leave them plain.
5. Add chopped vegetables. (Try lightly sautéing spinach then hide it under the cheese)
6. Top with cheese. (There are marvelous soy cheeses on the market. Give them a try)
7. Place your completed 'pizza' on an aluminum foil-lined baking sheet in an oven preheated to 350 degrees F or in a toaster oven.
8. Bake for 5 to 10 minutes, depending on how crispy your child likes his pizza, or until the cheese is a golden brown color.
9. Add some fresh basil, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and enjoy.

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As well as keeping them healthy and happy, homemade pizza is a delightful way to create happy memories in the kitchen with the kids.

Yes, pizza is a charming national treasure. No one disputes it tastes mighty good. However, did you know ‘to-your-door’ prepared pizzas can sabotage family health? Excessive fatty cheese in the bottom and the crusty trim combined with white flour pizza dough, salt and greasy pepperoni or sausage is a formula for obesity, high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease and diabetes. One piece accompanied with a garden salad is cool, but who eats just one.

A whole grain English muffin pizza is a healthful way to get some extra fiber, calcium and veggies into your child's diet. There are many meat substitutes on the grocery shelves. Just be lovingly sneaky when making the switch. Adding more vegetables will build up the little tyke’s immune response to fight off H1N1.

• One (1) slice of pepperoni pizza contains 400 calories.
  To put this in perspective, a majority of candy bars have 230 to 249 calories.
  4-8 year olds only need 1400-1600 calories a day.
• One slice contains a whopping 1000 mg of salt. Their average daily needs 2400 mg.
  A normal child aged 4 to 8 typically needs only 1,200 milligrams per day, but the typical child consumes at least 2,800 per day.
• One slice contains:
  • 40% daily saturated-fat quotient
  • 8% daily cholesterol
  • 6 grams of sugar
• The refined white flour crust stresses the pancreas

But, who eats just one slice? When you do the math, you’ll see how quickly it can ad up.
Finally, when you factor in the dipping sauces, there’s trouble a-brewing.
Garlic dipping sauce has an additional 150 additional calories, 17g of fat and 310g salt in each 1.5 oz cup. 911-911 Thud!

Good News!
All this can just go away if moms and dads adopt the tradition of preparing home-made pizza.
Let kids choose their own toppings and put the muffin pizza together by themselves. As an added bonus let them bake it themselves in an Easy-Bake Oven.