Recipe: GFV Maitake Spinach Flatbread Pizza

I'll preface this by saying that I am not living a gluten-free or vegan lifestyle.  That means two things:

1. I'm going by what the products I used say rather than my own deep understanding of what makes something gluten-free or vegan.
2. If I loved this food, it's not because I don't 'know any better' - that is, I have eaten 'normal' pizza recently, so loving this recipe is solely because it's damn tasty

OK, now that I've gotten that out of the way, let's get down to business.  This is a super-simple, super-tasty, super-fast flatbread pizza recipe.  It uses many pre-made products, but you could do some of it from scratch (the tortillas, for sure; the vegan/soy-free/GF cheese?  Not so much).  It didn't cost a ton, but the price will vary based on what ingredients you add.  The most expensive component is really the 'cheese'.  The recipe I made is a maitake mushroom and spinach flatbread pizza, but you can obviously switch the toppings as you please.  You'll see my son's pizza in the background, which had spinach instead of the maitake's, though he did put four pieces of mushroom on his pizza, and had a mushroom-heavy bit of mine.

I made these tonight with my son, and we both loved them.  It was literally the fastest dinner we've ever had - he's normally a slow eater, but he scarfed this faster than 'real' pizza.

Ingredients

• 1 package Galaxy Nutritional Foods vegan mozzarella.  It is vegan, soy-free and actually melts (it actually gets gooey and sticky, unlike real cheese, but I've never seen fake cheese that can melt)
• Food for Life brown rice tortilla - 1 tortilla per person (or half if you're a 4 year old, like my dinner date was)
• Pizza sauce - I used Whole Foods prepared organic pizza sauce, but feel free to make your own, substitute another brand, skip it, etc.  You could also just brush on olive oil with some sea salt and minced garlic, which I've done in the past and loved
• 1 package maitake mushrooms (enough for 2-3 tortillas, depending how densely you top them)
• 1 hand full of baby spinach per pizza

Constructions (how my son said 'instructions' when he was younger...much cuter, and perhaps more appropriate)

• Lay out the tortilla, and spoon on 3-4 tablespoons of sauce, spreading around nearly to the edge.  Add more or less, depending on your preference, but be mindful of making the tortilla so wet that it falls apart.  Also be mindful of little kids who like to keep spooning - my son's pizza had 8 table spoons of sauce.
• Sprinkle 'cheese' evenly over the top of the sauce
• Put down baby spinach leaf by leaf, covering the pizza
• Sprinkle chopped up maitake mushrooms over the spinach
• Lay down a bit more 'cheese', or have your four-year-old just turn the package upside down and make a huge pile of it.
• Laugh, and say, "Wow, thanks!"
• Spread the pile of cheese more evenly
• Bake in a wire rack for 8-10 minutes on 350, but watch it to be sure the cheese is melting and the tortillas aren't cracking too much.  Both of ours developed big cracks, but I used that as a guide for cutting them.
• Laugh.
• Eat.
• Hope your kid doesn't finish all of their pizza so you can have more.
• Laugh.
• Remind kid how fun it was to make these, and thank them for their awesome work.
• Clean the sticky, gooey 'cheese' stuck to your fingers while laughing.
• Clean up.
• Done.

Eating smart can be fast, easy and delicious. You don't have to live on rice crackers, kale and water. You can have fun, involve your kids, and teach them to value healthful eating while seeing how easy and normal it is to do.  Enlighten them and you will enlighten.your.body.