Basic Pizza

This is a great meal to make with kids.  There isn't anything special about any part of the recipe except that the kids can easily help and will eat it!  I got the recipe from a small community cookbook.

Jake can help read the recipe and add the ingredients.

He could use some more muscles when it comes to stirring!

I use the biggest cookie sheet I own to make this pizza.  It seems that the crust does best the thinner it is.  Otherwise it tastes a little doughy or floury to me.

I help to fill in the holes and sprinkle seasoning on it.

This time we topped the pizza with hamburger and spicy sausage.  I like to brown two pounds of hamburger at a time and then freeze whatever I'm not using.  I did that this time with the hamburger.  I was able to just pull it out of the freezer.  I didn't do that with the sausage, so I had to brown it while the crust was baking.  By the way, this tool for breaking up meat is so handy.

Here is the crust ready for the toppings.  I had to bake it for 15 minutes to get the edges to start to brown.  It will depend on your oven.

I just dump the whole jar of pizza sauce and let Jake spread it to the edges.

Then he sprinkles the meat (and gets a little messy).  We only put sausage on 1/2 of it because I wasn't sure if the kids would like it.

Then comes the cheese.

The cookie sheet is typically very hot, but based on how long it takes us to get the toppings on, it was cool enough for Trey to get to add some cheese too.  Patience is required when cooking with the kids!

Of course they each had to have a handful of cheese to eat too.

I could have probably let the cheese melt a little more, but I was hungry and so were the kids!

Like I said, nothing fancy, nothing special, but something the kids can help do and like to eat.  In fact, we've made pizza with all of the solid-food eating cousins as a fun activity. 

2 2/3 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1/3 cup oil
1/4 Parmesan cheese (I often fail to have this so I skip it)
Italian Seasoning (optional)
1 small jar pizza sauce
2 cup shredded mozzarella (or Italian blend) cheese

Combine dry ingredients.  Add milk and oil.  Stir until mixture forms a ball.  On floured surface, knead dough 20 times.  Pat dough into greased large pizza pan or cookie sheet.  Sprinkle dough with Parmesan cheese and Italian Seasoning.  Bake crust only at 425 for 10 minutes or until starting to brown on the edges.  Remove crust from oven, add sauce, toppings of choice and cheese.  Bake an additional 5 to 10 minutes or until cheese is melted.