And on the seventh day the good lord added tomato sauce and cheese atop a dough base. His finest creation. Take a bow big guy. Pizza is unleashed onto the world… Pretty sure the above doesn’t feature in the good book, but it should.
Not only is pizza delicious, inexpensive, delicious, easy to eat and delicious – it’s also stacks of fun to make. And that last bit may be the reason my kids are actually eating it.
We have a problem in my house. My kids are always hungry. Or “starving” as Matilda (Miss 7) likes to put it. But when it comes to dinner time their hunger mysteriously disappears. Like a rabbit out of a magician’s hat. Abracadabra it’s gone. That was until I started getting them involved. Enter my new favourite food – Pizza. Side note definitely not my “new” fav food. Always has been, always will be.
Recently I’ve started letting the kids make their own pizzas. We wash all the nasties off their hands (kid’s hands are gross) and line them up along the kitchen bench. They get a base each and small bowls of pizza sauce, cheese and ham. One day we might actually get a vegetable added to that list. They then proceed to make one hell of a mess on the pizza base. As long as it’s on the dough base and not on my floor I don’t care. After their Frankenstein like pizza creations are cooked they gobble them up completely. Can’t get enough. What a transformation.
The interesting thing is they never liked my home-made pizza at all. Charlie (Mr 3) once told me my creations were “Yuk”. That’s a huge insult in the mind of a 3-year-old. It’s amazing what getting their hands dirty(er) has done. The act of them making dinner is like a badge of honour. Every last morsel must then be consumed. Of course, now that I know my little trick is a winner I must exploit it. And that my friend is how I scored myself a couple of sous chefs at dinner time. There’s nothing they won’t do. Getting their hands all mincey on rissole night, rolling out meatballs another, and the other day I even had my daughter bang out a chicken breast with a rolling pin for a schnitty night. The options are endless.
Also, in a world of iPads and Netflix it’s nice to spend a few extra minutes together with the kids in the kitchen – the heart of the home. Even if the ground does start to resemble the floor of the Bega Cheese factory on pizza night.
Happy cooking kids!
Cliffo Hit 103.5
