Small Miracles:: Crockpot Pizza!

The other week, on a Wednesday, as we sat down to dinner, my daughter asked me why we didn't have pizza for dinner that night.  We had had a conversation earlier in the day throwing around dinner ideas, and pizza was one of them.  I apologized, and promised that we could have pizza the next day, if I could figure out how to have it ready to eat as soon as we walk in the door.  Thursdays are our craziest days. I pick the kids up from school, play for 2 ballet classes, then we rush home for dinner.  Generally, we eat sandwiches, or something straight from the crock pot.  Pizza is trickier. Even if I had the pizza ready to throw into the oven when we got home, it still would take longer to be ready than the time we have on a Thursday night.


So.  I went to good 'ole Google and searched for crock pot pizza and slow cooker pizza.  Wouldn't you know, I wasn't the only one thinking of such a thing!  It was hard to find what I wanted, however.  I had to sift through recipes for pizza casserole and pizza sauce.  I finally found what I wanted.

I found a link to crockingirls.com.  I'm really enjoying their website!  They have a ton of unorthodox slow cooker recipes.  I looked at their Slow Cooker Pizza recipe, and used the technique with my usual pizza dough recipe from Life as Mom instead of canned pizza dough.  I used half the batch of dough in the crock pot.  I could have used more like 1/3 and had a thinner crust.

To be fair, my first try was not the same as pizza baked quickly at a high temperature.  I've eaten much better.  I've made much better.  But it was cooked, the cheese was melted, and it wasn't burned. It was ready when we walked in the door.  The only one in my family that refused a piece was the child who refuses pizza anyway.

I'm sure with a little tweaking, this will become a regular in my rotation of easy crock pot dinners for my crazy evenings.