Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Pizza with the kids


pepperoni spinach pork
Originally uploaded by chuborupert
The kids and I made pizza. I started out planning to make some flat bread to eat with pasta, but as I got going and my daughter wanted to help, we switched gears and decided to go with pizza. My daughter took most of the pictures (except the ones she is in)
The dough was made with

one cup of yeast starter
2 cups of all purpose flour
one sprig of rosemary
1/4 cup of olive oil
2 tablespoons of salt
one teaspoon of sugar

Everything was combined the dough was kneaded for 10 minutes and then left to rest and rise

pizza dough ball

While the dough rested we prepped a little
sauteed one large bunch of spinach in olive oil with salt, dehydrated onion and granulated garlic

spinach

Then drained it and set it aside (It was really good just like this though)

spinach

We shaved some parmesan

parmesan

Once the dough had doubled in size we split it in half to make two pizza's
My daughter demonstrates three methods of spreading the dough out.
Pressing it with her fingertips...

pressing pizza

rolling it with a rolling pin...

rolling pizza

and tossing it all fancy like...

tossing pizza

We ended up with two very thin pies, so they would cook quickly and try to minimize the pizza being raw in the middle and burnt on the edge.

we loaded up the pizza's with toppings. On the pizza destined for myself and my wife we put down sauce, parmesan, spinach, mozzarella cheese, pepperoni and some leftover Chinese takeout pork (why not), The kids split theirs with one side including spinach and pepperoni the other just with some precooked chicken.

baking

and the finished products after 10 minutes in a 500 deg oven. (Fahrenheit)

half chicken half pepperoni and spinach

pepperoni spinach pork

They turned out very good, even despite lacking a pizza stone and having to juggle the pizza around in the oven to keep it cooking even.
The crust was crispy with a nice rosemary fragrance that did not overpower the pizza. The biggest surprise was how good the spinach tasted all by it's lonesome as well as on the pie. That and the Chinese takeout pork worked very well with it's addition of some sweetness. And as usual it's a lot of fun to get the kids involved in what's for dinner.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

PIZZALICIOUS! GREAT photos too! Never thought to put Chinese on a pizza before!

Anonymous said...

PIZZALICIOUS! Great photos too! That girl is well on her way to shooting for Gourmet Magazine. I never thought to put Chinese on a pizza either. Good idea.

Borinkeando said...

la verdad que no hay nada mejor que disfrutar de un día familiar en la cocina... no importa el desorden que quede después ..jajajaja!
ME gusta ver que tu y tus hijos disfruten de esas experiencia culinarias.
Las pizzas se ven ricas ! que pena que vivamos tan distantes, porque sino hubiera aparecido a comer pizza sin invitación , jajajaja por que por el olorcito ubiera llegado!
Que tengas un hermoso dia junto a tu familia!