Eat-za Pizza

Scottie and I have a longstanding tradition that Friday night is Pizza night.  We rarely buy pizza from a pizzeria and instead buy a less-expensive frozen pizza, and in my father's words, "doctor it up" by adding our own ingredients.  After using a boxed dough mix 2 weeks ago, I received several dough recipes from friends.  Last week, we tried one recipe and this week we tried another.  Pizza dough is really easy to make and I love to let Connor top the pizza that he shares with Grant.  We're finding our normally picky and pokey eater is excited by what we're serving him and he wants to be a part of the cooking process.  I let him make decisions where possible and help in a safe and age-appropriate way.  Feeling ownership and control over what he eats is encouraging Connor to eat more.  He is also becoming a more and more adventurous eater; he again requested mushrooms as a pizza topping, and when we had leftover pineapple from lunch, he wanted that on his pizza too.  What parent can argue with a pizza overflowing with produce?

Today's pizza toppings were sautéed mushrooms, pineapple, sausage, and oven-dried tomatoes.  I raved about the tomatoes last week and haven't stopped telling people about how fantastic they taste.  This is a permanent addition to our pizza, (find the recipe under the "recipes" post.)

While making the pizza dough today, I had to improvise. I didn't have enough flour.  All of the baking I've done over the past 3 weeks rapidly exhausted my flour supply.  Next time I'll buy the big bag of flour.  I was 3/4 cup short and since baking=science, I didn't want to mess with the recipe.  The only thing I found in my pantry (that wasn't off limits) was leftover pancake mix.  I'm not sure what's exactly in Hungry Jack Just Add Water mix, but it helped produce a tasty crust.  I also used my stand mixer again but ended up grabbing the dough and kneading by hand.  I wonder if my sister has ever done dough kneading with her occupational therapy patients: it was very relaxing.

Throughout our family's efforts to change how we eat, I'm glad that many of our favorite food traditions have remained.  We are changing how we execute the traditions, and I think they're actually getting stronger.  Putting extra toppings on a frozen cardboard-tasting pizza isn't a lasting family memory, but seeing the pride on my 3 year-old's face as "his" pizza is served, is priceless.

Here's what we ate today:

Breakfast
- S Cereal with Milk
- KC&G Oatmeal with Brown Sugar and Milk
Total $0.70

Lunch
- SKC&G 4-Cheese Grilled Cheese (bread, cream cheese, pepper jack, Monterey Jack, and cheddar cheese. margarine) and Pineapple
- C&G Milk and Yogurt
- S&K Tea
Total $3.29

Snack
- G Milk
Total $0.06

Dinner
- S&K Homemade Pizza (dough, pasta sauce, cheese, oven-dried tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms, sausage, and pineapple)
- C&G Homemade Pizza (dough, cheese, sautéed mushrooms, sausage, pineapple)

- C&G Milk

* Charged self $0.50 Spice Fee (Worchestershire Sauce)

Total $5.70

Dessert
- G Crackers

- S&C Cookies

- S Tea (two tea bags in one day?  Easy, big spender! :)  LOL. )

Total $0.41

Total Spend $10.16

Tomorrow: Dish Duty