This time of year is birthday season for our immediate and extended family. This last weekend was my husband’s birthday! Lucky for him, I had the opportunity to try out the new Thin Crust Flatbreads from Flatout Flatbread. I decided to put together a pick your own fixings party for his birthday. I’m also sharing my pesto recipe and some of the delicious pizza combos we came up with.

The Flatbreads come in three Artisan flavors: Spicy Italian, Heritage Wheat, and Rustic White. Each flatbread has 7 g  of protein and  I really liked them all. The Spicy Italian is not messing around. It is quite spicy with red pepper flakes. It was perfect with my Chicken Fajita pizza, which I will share in a minute.

This was a very simple party to throw together. I loved it, and I will be doing it again. First was the sauces and cheese. We used a regular red pizza sauce, a white alfredo sauce, and I made a pesto sauce.  I was worried that everyone would just stick to regular sauce, but everyone except the kids branched out and tried the Alfredo and pesto.

I had a variety of topping to choose from. Putting the ramekins on a lazy Susan made it easy for everyone to get at their favorites.

 Here’s my husband, Ryan, and friend, Edna, putting their pizzas together.

Here we are all ready to go into the oven. I cut the flatbreads in half so everyone had a chance to try more than one variety. The kids could only eat half of one flatbread, so keep that in mind when you give this a try.

Now it is recipe time. First I’m sharing the recipe for my chicken pesto pizza. It has pesto, grilled chicked, mozzerella, sliced tomatoes, and artichoke hearts on Heritage Wheat Flatbread. It was seriously delicious and my absolute favorite.

Chicken Pesto Pizza

Ingredients for the Pesto

• 2 cups packed basil leaves 
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
• extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese 

 Directions for the Pesto
1. Add everything but the olive oil to the food processor and pulse it a few times.
2. Slowly drizzle in olive oil while processing until you get your desired texture.
  
Pizza Topping Ingredients

• Prepared Pesto
• Chopped and grilled chicken
• Shredded Mozzerella cheese
• tomatoes sliced thin
• chopped, canned artichoke hearts

Directions for the Pizza

1. In a preheated 350 degree oven, toast the Flatout Thin Crust Flatbread directly on the rack for approximately 3 minutes. For less crispy flatbread, toast on a cooking sheet.
2. Top with the pesto, and then sprinkle with shredded mozzarella cheese.
3. Top your pizza as desired with the chicken, tomatoes, and artichoke hearts.
4. Heat in the oven 4-5 minutes or until the cheese is completely melted.

Chicken Fajita Pizza

I also created a Chicken Fajita Pizza which was delicious. I put this on the Spicy Italian flatbread and it gave a real punch of heat. To kick up the heat one more notch, I used shredded pepper jack cheese.
To create this pizza:

• Spread a thin layer of refried beans on your pre-heated flatbread. 
• Add a layer of shredded pepper jack cheese
• Top with chopped grilled chicken, sliced red and green peppers, and chopped red onion. 
• Bake in the oven according to the package instructions. 

If you don’t have enough heat already you can add some salsa when this comes out of the oven.  I love my food spicy, and this was really delicious! I also liked that instead of a traditional sauce, I used refried beans for some Mexican flare.

Everybody had a great time at the party! Here are my parents and daughter enjoying their hand crafted Flatbread pizzas.

Disclaimer: Flatout Bread and the Motherhood provided me with the flatbread and compensation to purchase party ingredients.  All opinions and recipe ideas are my own.