Kids' Pizzas

Pizza is the perfect way to get kids involved in cooking. Give them an apron and space to use the rolling pin, and let them have at a small ball of dough! We like to set out small bowls with a variety of kid-friendly toppings — such as tomato sauce, pepperoni, halved cherry tomatoes, sliced mushrooms, grated cheese — and give them free reign to pick their own toppings. With younger children, adult hands are helpful to make sure the toppings get somewhat evenly distributed, but older kids enjoy the chance to do their own thing. Leaving the adults to their own pizza indulgence...

Here, our friends' 3-year-old shows off some mad pizza-making skills.

Mini Pizzas

Oooh, take a look at this!

Look here:

And here:

Those are mini Lively Pizzas, made by yours truly for ML's birthday party the other week. Super fun! And fairly painless!

Just divide your dough into about 30 balls instead of 3. ML made the dough the day before the party, divided it into mini balls and stored them in the refrigerator, layered in a pizza box with parchment paper in between. Party-day morning, he rolled them out and par-baked them. Then just before the party I threw some toppings on, popped them in the oven 8 or 9 at a time (using a cookie sheet instead of the pizza stone for convenience) and ended up with super fun party food. Took a little bit longer than making ordinary-sized pizzas, but they were easier to munch on while playing pin-the-flag-on-the-treasure-map. (Pirate-dinosaur theme, you know...)

Coming Soon!

We inadvertently stumbled upon deep dish skillet pizzas and recipes for grilled pizza. Experiments in progress. Recipes coming soon.

Thank you for SPAM(ming)!

spam: 1. (v) To flood the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. [source] 2. (n) Trademarked name of a canned precooked meat product. [source]

Last week, numerous friends and family spent countless minutes (hours?) voting for us to win a free wedding photography giveaway. And we won!!

So to show our appreciation for all those who spammed the contest blog, typing in our names over 1,000 times, we made a super-star spam pizza. We are so thankful for your support and enthusiasm!

(and YOU should be thankful you didn't have to eat the pizza...)

"I do not like them in a house, I do not like them with a mouse...

I do not like mushrooms & spam, I do not like them, Sam-I-am."

On Pepperoni

Just read this New York Times article about pepperoni.  Although I've never been crazy about its greasiness on pizza, I am now tempted to track down some homemade, artisinal pepperoni and give it another chance.

Weekly basis

ML's reaction to the first post: "It's very cute. I hope we can keep posting on a weekly basis."

WEEKLY.