Making Pizza!

Like just about everyone else in the world who read Barbara Kingsolver's inspiring book, Animal Vegetable Miracle, I decided that we should start having once a week homemade pizza nights.

I ordered Ricki Carroll's book from the library and started dreaming about the fresh mozzarella cheese we'd make and enjoy on our pizza.

But just like the canning kit I bought to make jam this summer, the cheese-making supplies remain on a shelf gathering dust.

As discouragement and frustration set in every time I popped another frozen pizza in the toaster, I decided to shift my perspective.

What if we started to consciously enjoy and appreciate our frozen pizzas and make eating them a special event (not just a default dinner)?

And then what if we switched from frozen pizzas to pizza shells that the kids could spread (store-bought) sauce and (store-bought) mozzarella on, so things could start to feel a little bit more homemade?

And then what if we shifted from pizza shells to store-bought dough that we could roll ourselves. And from shredded mozzarella to fresh (store-bought) mozzarella for us? (The kids prefer the shredded mozzarella.)

Eventually we'll get to the cheese-making and homemade dough and our own canned tomato sauce, but for now we are really enjoying our own mostly-homemade, fun, toddler-friendly version of pizza night!

Here are some pictures from last night's pizza-making fun...

Kneading the dough:




Rolling the dough:


Adding sauce:


Pesto pizza with tomatoes, caramelized onions, pine nuts, blue cheese and fresh mozzarella:


We roasted corn on the grill:


The herb garden on the deck (basil, parsley and nasturtiums):