Pizza for Kids

My kids eat a lot of pizza, but they are also excited about a "make your own" pizza night.  I help them make the dough from scratch using the typical dry yeast, salt, sugar, flour, and water (you can look up bread basics easily).

We spread on jarred pizza sauce such as Boboli's brand (I'm not making everything from scratch here!), and then I present a mix of ingredients for them to pick.  Typical ones include sauteed mushrooms, chopped garlic, carmelized onion, pepperoni, shredded Italian cheese blends,  black olives, and less conventional options such as browned ground beef and pickles. 

You can see from the photo that my daughter shaped her pizza like a heart and had cheese, black olives, pepperoni (like eyes), and pickles.  My son loves to do the same but include mushrooms, a lot of hamburger and a lot of pickles.  Mine is not pictured, but simply did garlic, cheese, mushrooms, and red pepper flakes.

Baking the pizza is by instinct--maybe 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes depending on the thickness of the dough.

If you have kids, this is a real fun project and they tend to eat more when it's their own creation!

Homemade Bread

Inspired by a book I recently read by Michael Ruhlman (see previous post), I tried my hand at making bread for once.

First of all, it's well known that baking and cooking are different things.  Baking is more science, and cooking is more art.  But anyone who loves food should really be proficient in both to some degree, and this was my turn to actually attempt baking beyond making cookies or biscuits from a box.

Digging up some basic recipes from the Epicurious app on my iPhone, I quickly was able to put together some basic methods using the typical dry yeast, water, flour, etc.

After a couple of partially failed attempts, I was soon experimenting with additional ingredients like dried rosemary, olive oil, honey, etc. to make French loaves or ciabatta-style Italian bread.

Give it a try--far more satisfying than the grocery breads you can buy, and easier than expected!