The Birthday Pizza Pie

Daddy’s birthday is cause for celebration. This year he said he wanted two things: Godfather’s Pizza and an electric hedge trimmer.

Hey, it’s his birthday. Who am I to judge?

I abliged on the latter, but the former just didn’t sound special enough. I decided to one-up.

One of my favorite things my mom used to make when I was growing up was her homemade pizza. My best friend, who ate it a time or two, still vividly recalls my mom’s pizza.

So does my dad.

“Yeah, that was good,” he told me the other night on the phone. He is perfunctory to say the least, but I could still imagine him salivating as he recalled the pizza.

I started out this first homemade pizza escapade by making my husband a card modeled after a pizzeria-style menu using Microsoft Word and card stock. On one side I wrote “Happy Birthday, Daddy” in Italian (thanks to Babelfish, the online translator) next to a simple, black-and-white clipart picture of a pizza box that Elli colored.




On the other side, I listed the options for toppings, sides and beverages. At the bottom, I wrote a special birthday wish for him and had Elli sign the card next to my signature.




He loved it. And he loved the thought of homemade pizza even more than store-bought.

The next step was to confer with my mom on her secrets. Here’s how the conference went, more or less.

Secret #1) Grease pan with Crisco then sprinkle pan with cornmeal to keep dough from sticking to pan.

Well, I refuse to use shortening and I rarely use cornmeal for anything else, which means I’d waste an entire box. Where does that leave us?

Parchment paper. And a crust that doesn’t taste the same as mine.

I’ll live with it.

Secret #2) Forgo pizza sauce for plain, ol’ tomato sauce and top it with Italian seasoning.

No problem.

Secret #3) Use a jelly roll pan. It makes for a bigger pizza.

Bigger is better.

Secret #4) Use pouch mix.

Why?

It’s cheaper.

Oh.


Homemade Pizza

2 pouches pizza dough mix
½ to ¾ can tomato sauce
6 strips cooked and crumbled turkey bacon
4 cups shredded Mozzarella cheese
1 lb turkey sausage
1 can mushroom bits and pieces
1 small can sliced black olives
½ green pepper, chopped
Italian seasoning, garlic powder to taste

Prepare dough mix according to package directions. Cover pan with sheet of parchment paper. Drop dough ball into center of pan and gently press dough with greased fingers out to edges of pan. Top with tomato sauce, then Italian seasoning. Top sauce with a small amount of cheese. Layer on desired meat and vegetable toppings. Sprinkle with garlic powder. Top with thicker layer of cheese. Bake according to package directions or until crust is golden brown and cheese is bubbly.

Normally I do not go for cooking meals that take at hour to prepare or require multiple steps, but this was a special occasion. So be forewarned that this pizza will take about an hour to make if you cook the bacon and sausage right before you begin to make the dough.

Elli came into the cooking when it was time to spread the dough into the pan.

“We pat, pat, pat,” I told her as I gently pressed the dough down and out from the middle of the pan.

“Pat, pat,” she repeated. Her “patting” was strikingly similar to “grabbing and pulling.” So be it. She loved having the canola oil on her fingers and touching the soft dough.

Her favorite part was slopping on the toppings. I carefully directed her on where to drop the toppings so that they were evenly spread across the crust.

I would name each ingredient as I let her grab it out of my hand to spread on the dough.




You'd think this would make for one glorious mess. You would be right. For one thing, the black olives never made it to the pizza. We had an "oops" and they ended up strewn across the kitchen floor. We paused to reflect on their loss, hearing a faint "Taps," then pressed on with the cheese.





Tip: Dried cheese is much easier to sweep up than fresh cheese.

The pizza was a hit! Both with Daddy and with Elli.



Things Elli could do:

• help pat the dough into the pan
• help spread the tomato sauce over the dough
• help sprinkle seasoning...which explains the lingering garlic smell in my kitchen two days later
• help spread the toppings - hands down her favorite part
• "check" the pizza through the oven window and squel with delight when she saw the "bubbles" in the "teese"

Homemade Pizza Ratings

5 being the best

Elli-friendly cooking: 4
Elli-friendly eating: 3 (crust was hard for her to chew)
Simple: 5
Fast: 2 (lots of prep work!)
Frugal: 4

Where I buy:
Aldi: cheese, turkey bacon
Hy-Vee: turkey sausage, black olives, pizza crust mix, mushrooms, tomato sauce, green pepper

Chicken and Swiss

4 cups chopped cooked chicken 2 cups croutons (basically a whole package) 1 1/2 cups shredded Swiss cheese 1 cup sliced celery 2/3 cup mayo 1/2 cup milk 1/4 cup chopped onion Prehead over to 350. Mix all ingredients. Spoon into 2-quart casserole dish. Bake 40 minutes or until heated through. Croutons will burn; live with it. This is a Kraft Food and Family recipe I found online. I pull a lot from Kraft’s magazine and website. They cater to the busy and epicurean deficient. Of course, they also shamelessly plug all things Kraft. Things my mother taught me: You do NOT have to buy the brand-name product listed in the recipe. Frugality is freedom. The first time I made this dish was the week Elli was born. I had prepped all the ingredients the weekend before she arrived, and finally got around to cooking the dish the weekend after. The first time I tasted it I remember thinking it was my new favorite dish ever, surpassing even my grandma’s scalloped cabbage, which we'll cover later. Our family downed that first batch. Okay, truth be told, it was me who downed the leftovers…in the middle of the night…standing in front of the open fridge…right after the 1 a.m. feeding. I implore you not to let my indiscriminately ravenous state of that moment raise any doubts in your mind about how truly delicious the dish is. In fact, this dish has officially made it into the Family Recipe Box. But the one thing that keeps me from chronically feeding it to my family is that it’s a little time intensive. Kraft claims the prep time is a paltry 20 minutes. My foot. In the list of ingredients you will notice words like “cooked” and “chopped.” Onion doesn’t come chopped. Believe me, I’ve looked. Nor does the chicken of my choice come cooked and cubed and ready for measuring. I also steer away from pre-shredded Swiss, mainly because of the price. Oddly enough, the only pre-shredded Swiss I can find is Kraft. I can easily find a generic block. So, that means that I must cook up some chicken breasts, wash and chop celery and onion, and shred some Swiss off the block. We’re looking at more than 20 minutes, especially if Elli is next to me tirelessly trying to grab the cheese shreds. The realistic prep time, and the cook time, make this a definite weekend meal. Oh man is it worth it if you can swing though! This was the first time Elli helped me cook Chicken and Swiss. Actually, I think it’s the first time she’s had Swiss. She saw me put on my apron and called out for hers. “Apin! Elli apin!” she insisted. I slipped the strap around her neck and tied the strings around her waist, her chunky little belly hanging over the knot. “Mommy apin,” she said, making sure I knew that the yellow-striped apron I had on was indeed my own. “Yes, my love, that’s Mommy’s apron. Shall we cook?” “Tootk!”

Things Elli could do:

• add celery, shredded cheese, croutons to baking dish
• stir ingredients, carefully, slooooowly, with Mommy’s help
• pour milk over casserole
• Taste-test the croutons
• Say "teese" ("cheese") a lot
• push buttons on stove to set bake temperature
• “check” the casserole through the oven window close to the end of baking time

Chicken and Swiss Ratings 5 being the best Elli-friendly cooking: 3 Elli-friendly eating: 5 Simple: 4 Fast: 2 Frugal: 4 Where I buy: Aldi: Swiss cheese block, croutons, chicken breasts (5 lb frozen bag), celery bunch, yellow onions, light mayonnaise

Costco: Milk Two-for This recipe calls for such an odd amount of cheese, onion and celery, leaving me with practically a whole bunch of celery, half a small onion and about a fourth of a block of Swiss cheese. What to do? Know this about our family: celery is a rarity. None of us really like it all that much, so I rarely buy it. When I do use it in dishes, it’s usually buried. The only other thing I could think of that takes celery (and something we would actually eat) is tuna salad. But Swiss cheese in tuna salad? What’s the worst that could happen? I thought, and told Elli what we were about to do. “Are you ready?” I asked. “I ready!”

TunaSwiss Salad 1 stalk celery, finely chopped Rest of the onion (about ¼ cup), finely chopped 1 can tuna ½ cup Swiss cheese, shredded ½ cup light mayonnaise Few dashes of Mrs. Dash Nature’s Seasoning, to taste Elli and I mixed everything in a plastic storage container. I showed her how to shake on the Mrs. Dash. She loves to shake. Her first favorite toy was Mr. Mouse, a rattle toy in the shape of a mouse. I guided the spoon as she stirred everything together. And when we were done, I let her taste first, and then I did. “What do you think?” I asked her. She simply motioned for the spoon again. I took that as a positive.