I’m trying to get my kids more involved with dinner prep, primarily to peak their interest in food, but also to train them. I figure if I can get them to work a chopping board, I’ll free up some time to kick back on the couch, glass of wine in hand, and catch up on some much needed Downton Abbey. Seeing that my ambition is still a long way off, I figure an interest in food is still a solid goal, and no better place to start than a quick and easy pizza.
The last thing the blog world needs is a basic pizza recipe, but I actually struggled with this one – making a homemade pizza that my kids could help prepare and that I wouldn’t mind digging into either. A few months ago we tried make-your-own pizzas with pita bread but it was a huge disappointment. Somewhere in an exhausted corner of my brain I thought, “hey, they like pizza, I’m feeling lazy tonight, why not this?
After Lauren squinted and picked up a corner of the pita pizza with the edge of her fingernail, I knew the effort was doomed. I should have known better. Back in college, pita pizzas were the dirty step-child of the pizza world. We were always hard-pressed to find alternative lunch options in our dining hall, aptly called “the Ratty”. Someone would inevitably grab a little of this, a little of that, microwave and voila! “Pita pizza guys! Yum!” And it was never yum, or anything close to yum.
So despite my desire to lovingly mix together some combination of olive oil, water, flour and yeast and let it gently proof in a warm nook on my counter, it wasn’t happening. I’d spent the day sprinting from one appointment to the next, in heels, cursing why I hadn’t worn sensible shoes or, preferably, combat boots. No dough for our evening pizza-building activity? No problem, I grabbed the next available thing, which so happened to be a decent all-natural premade crust from the market. Sometimes I have to let go of my food-from-scratch obsessions just to get the gist across, even if it’s not all out pillowy perfection. And that’s often what a weeknight dinner is all about.
