Tostada Pizza (Southern Living 1981)

I had a long discussion with myself about this one. I know know know know know my boys hate refried beans. I'm not sure why they have such a strong aversion to them, but it exists. I was thinking they would reject this meal on a whole simply because of the existence of refried beans. 

I tried to think about other ways to make it, and thought I could just do salsa as a "pizza sauce" and then I figured I should just make it according to directions. It's good for the kiddos to try something new and I knew that The Hubs and I would both eat it.

The original recipe:

 

I changed it up just a little bit. I made the taco seasoned beef the week before and froze it. (I bought 2.5 pounds when I made Cheesy Bacon Burgers. Used half on the burgers and went ahead and made up the other half for this.) However, I didn't have a packet of taco seasoning so I went to the internet and did something like this. I threw in some brown sugar, cumin, chili powder...I think some salt and black pepper too. And then more cumin. Because how can you have too much cumin? No measuring of course. Just throwing.

The other day, The Cat ran in the house. (It's only allowed in on special snowy and/or way below freezing occasions). I threw it out. I told the boys about throwing The Cat out. Two days later The Hubs told me about something Junior did. Junior had picked up and thrown The Cat as though it was a ball. His defense for his actions? That I had done it. I guess I should be more careful with my words.

Hmm...After I lovingly placed the ingredients in for the seasoning and made the ground beef, I allowed it to cool and then froze it. There. That's better.

When I was making it, I realized I would have like a half cup of baking mix left. I went ahead and made the crust a bit larger. I also mixed some salsa in with the refried beans. The rest was pretty much according to directions. Minus the fresh vegetables on top of the pizza. I served it with a salad instead.

The crust before baking:

 

 

The final product:  

  The Hubs said it was good enough to have again. I think if I did it again, I would use taco sauce or salsa as the "pizza sauce" and skip the refried beans. It was good, but almost kinda pasty. I think it would be even better without that component.  

~Audry