The Boy just very cheerfully helped me invent some spicy soup for lunch, full of tomatoes and peppers and onions and garlic and then he grated Monterey Jack cheese on top. It's quite good, although I'm not normally a soup fan. I've been feeling a bit mournful recently, though, and soup is comforting to the whiny soul.
My inner clock is wildly confused by the time change - I keep cheerfully thinking "Oh, it's mid-morning" until I look at the clock and realize with a start that it's now lunchtime, apparently. I'm tired on top of my confusion, too, since I haven't been sleeping recently but have instead decided to lay awake and staring into the murky darkness, listening to trains rushing through town on their way to someplace else. So tonight I'm going to attempt to make a gluten-free carrot cake, moist with applesauce and covered in cream cheese icing, because if I can't SLEEP and I've decided to be O Woe Is Me, at least I can still eat. And thank goodness for that.
The kids love helping out in the kitchen, which has been our primary entertainment so far during the March Break - visiting friends and leaving the house being out of the question while we wait out the stomach bug. The Girl could actually do much of the household cooking herself, something which I'm rather proud of, although she's not allowed to put things in the oven at all (she's short!) and is only allowed to stir things on the stove if a parent is RIGHT THERE. How old are kids when they can use the oven on their own, do you think? The Girl is a steady, responsible child, but she's still only 8, and that line between being over-protective and not protective enough can sometimes be a tricky one.
Every Friday, we make homemade pizza. When we first had The Girl, we ordered in pizza every Friday but that was expensive and unhealthy and then we moved beyond the reach of pizza delivery places anyhow and so now we either purchase a pre-made crust and go on from there OR I make some pizza dough - it's REALLY EASY - and then my husband cheerfully rolls out the discs. The kids do one, we do the other and then we watch a movie (our one movie a week because we are No Fun) and just relax. Oddly enough though, I've never taken pictures of something that we do at least 40 times a year - maybe because it's such a mundane weekly thing that it just doesn't occur to us to take pictures. But this weekend we did. Observe!
My husband rolling out pizza dough.
I'm standing on the stairs above him, by the way. Our kitchen is SMALL and two adults cannot work in there at the same time. Also, that is a weird, weird angle.
Ta da!
That's my Cuisinart Flatbread Oven to the left, which is just about my favorite thing in the world.
And here's the pizza, all topped up. I'm feeling MORE THAN A BIT like The Pioneer Woman right now.
That IS broccoli on it. Many years ago, a friend of mine joyfully told me about a pizza shop that sold pizzas made with whole wheat crusts and broccoli as a topping and I thought "ew." And now I put broccoli on my own pizzas, which is how you can tell that I am a sophisticated adult and also a mean mother. There's also mozzarella, goat cheese, sweet Thai chili sauce and red onion on that particular pizza and I feel hungry just looking at it.
And here I am - the back of my head, anyway - putting the pizza into the oven.
And it looked like a pizza when it came out but we were hungry and ate it, so you'll just have to use your imagination.
And so that is what we do every week. I think it's very easy to fall into these food rituals without knowing it - a friend of mine took her kids out to a certain restaurant every Sunday after church because it was on the way home but it wasn't until she missed one weekend and her daughter wailed out "This isn't what we do on SUNDAY!" that she realized that it had become important to her kids, something that was now part of their expected week. Routine and ritual are a huge part of family life - our Friday pizza making, another friend's Monday soup-and-sandwiches - all of these things add up to being so much of what a family is. What foods say family to your children? And what foods say home to you?
Tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches and a dill pickle will always say home to me.
For my own kids, it would be homemade pizza too. We like a nice, thin crust, so I use giant wholewheat pitas as the base. We have them about once a week, usually on a Friday.
Whoa! First comment! We do the same thing on Friday nights - pizza and a movie. Our favourite pizzas are Thai chicken with peanut sauce and barbecued chicken with BBQ sauce instead of tomato, with caramelized onions. Oh yum!
Er.....second comment.
Huh. Cuisinart Flatbread Oven? Like for nothing but pizza and stuff?
That pizza looks delicious. I don't cook on Fridays though. That is my night off so we go out. Food rituals, hmmm...Saturday morning breakfast (my husband's French toast is to die for--probably literally, it's made with so much butter) and Sunday lunch with my side of the family.
We always had beans and weinies on Halloween before going out T or T. My children will not eat beans so it's not a tradition I've passed down. We used to do Sundaes on Sundays and tried Cinni-Sundays (cinnamon buns on Sunday) but then I counted the calories and fat and decided maybe not. So now our food traditions involve hiding chocolate -- assorted kinds in the Christmas stocking, coins in a pot of gold on St Patty's Day, heart shaped goodies in the Valentine's basket and egg hunts on Easter Sunday.
how fun! I have loads of food associations with home - popcorn with fudge was one from when I was very young on Sunday nights in the winter.
My husband would be mightily jealous of your husband's mane of hair!
That pizza sounds delicious!
We have a lot of food rituals too. Lots of them congregate around a happy holiday time. We live in the south too, so we have southern traditions (beans on New Years' Day) that we follow.
But we do the pizza every Friday night also. Homemade. I have small pans that allow us to each make our own, and learn patience as they come out of the toaster oven (scrimping on electricity) one by crispy one. It is a delight! I eat only half of mine so that traditionally, I can enjoy it all again over lunch the next day. And no one wants mine because I do not eat pepperoni or sausage so I do spinach and mushroom and sweet red pepper ... but brocolli sounds delicious. I'll have to try it.
We also do sandwiches and soup on Saturday night because we have church on Sat night and the Butler is also a Pastor, with looooong hours on the weekend. I go to church on Sat night and we come home toether, starving and late, around 8:00.
But ... one more ... I stay home on Sunday and cook a traditonal Sunday meal to enjoy when he gets home around 1:00.
Habits are easy to form. They say 21 times develops a habit. That happened long ago in our 27 yr-old marriage.
Great post, Beck!!!
We have the same routine once a week with home made pizza and a movie. It's probably the only night of the week that both my kids happily eat ALL their dinner and ask for seconds.
We always go out to lunch after Sunday church too. My parents and my sis and her girls go to church and lunch with us. It always ends up being a fun time.
That pizza looks delish!
We do breakfast for dinner a lot. In fact, we just finished a dinner of scrambled eggs, pan potatoes and toast. There was also a side of spring peas. Because I am a mean mother like that.
That looks good. I love brocolli on pizza. Yours looked awesome. And your hair is very pretty and shiny, too. Which is very important as a mom and food blogging queen.
My family food rituals are probably born out of laziness. My kids eat a huge pile of fresh fruit with a handful of dry cereal each morning. When they go elsewhere, the look rather confused at any other options (aside from restaurant breakfast choices). My Sunday after church routine changed last year. Lately the boys usually vote for us to eat at home after church - much to my lazy dismay.
When I asked Buddy what he wanted to eat for his birthday dinner, he said pizza. Much to my surprise, actually. So we made our own. He had a blast.
My mom always made us grilled cheese with tomato soup.
And roast chicken. My kids love roast chicken and the chicken soup the inevitably follows.
I used to the Pizza Friday until my kids told me that they dislike homemade pizza, which prompty sucked the joy out of it for me because coercing them to Just Eat One Piece isn't much fun.
I still make it sometimes, though, just to torture them, and because my husband and I love the homemade, whole wheat thin crust pizza dough I make.
It just recently occured to me to let my kids help me in the kitchen. I was so used to their 'help' involving dropping eggs on the floor and slowing me down and I shut them out for too long. Now Drew cheerfully cooks his own eggs and toasts his own toast and then proclaims it the best thing he ever tasted, even though it looks kind of rubbery and overcooked. I bite my tongue and encourage him to cook more, because I think the best gift I can give his future wife is a husband who loves to cook.
We don't really have any food traditions since there were so many of us and most of us were really picky eaters. However, we have some recipes that MUST be part of whatever holiday dinner we are celebrating, especially when the two youngest boys are present - a killer homemade mac & cheese, Gran's Brownies, and chocolate chip cookies (the tollhouse recipe). Also, applesauce and frozen strawberries which is truly yummy and very, very easy.
Funny. We are starting a food tradition. Now that we are on the coast we are having seafood Saturdays. A quick trip to the seafood market and we are cooking up some crab and mussels .... totally delicious!
I love that pizza. I have always vowed to make my own pizza ... I shall. Someday :)
Nice oven. We almost exclusively use our little toaster/convection oven in lieu of the big one.
I love letting the crust bake for a bit before adding the toppings. I usally do it with a hit of olive oil and then chopped basil or green onions. Yumm1
I never make homemade pizza, which is just stupid because I bought everything you need, including a pizza stone, from Pampered Chef a few years ago. Looking at your photos inspired me to correct that situation. Looks delicious!
(I'm still reading some, even if not writing!)
The pizza looks delish. We do pizza a lot on Friday, only sometimes made by us. Often times, by someone else.
We haven't found a groove with any rituals, though I'm always hoping that Sunday night dinners, complete with dessert, will be something that becomes routine. Though it's hard for anything to be routine at our house!
We make pizza just about every week, too. It's our Sunday evening Don't Feel Like Spending All Evening In The Kitchen ritual--as long as I remember to make the dough balls the day before. It took a couple of years of experimenting with various pizza recipes, but I finally found one that is TASTY and is easy to make (no kneading the dough until your arms fall off, as it has instructions for the mixer) and, I think I say this with some justification, it is every bit as good as the stuff at our favorite pizzeria. The crust is full of flavor, the pizza less greasy, and there are advantaged to making it home: we can top it as we like, and at least we KNOW if it has been dropped on the floor. Two things I love to put in our cheese: garlic and basil. Peter Reinhart is my hero, and also the reason we will continue to grow fatter every weekend.
How about the recipe for the pizza crust? I can't stand prebaked anymore! My Grandma's chicken and rice with "greasy green beans" says home to me. So does tomato soup with grilled cheese. This has left me pondering how my kids would answer this question. It should make for some wonderful conversation around the table tomorrow at dinner. Thanks.
Nothing says "home" to me like the sweet scent of my mother's cracked wheat bread baking... It is the same recipe that her mother used, and her mother's father before that. That, ans mum's blue-ribbon apple pie. Her pastry is THE BEST.
At my house, the girlies and I always bake muffins on Sunday mornings... most often banana-chocolate-chip, but OCCASIONALLY I get my own way, and make what I call "bunny muffins", which are basically "Morning Glories", and stuffed with carrots, walnuts and raisins.
My own favourite home-made main dish? A decadent, gooey macaroni and cheese. You can't beat that for comfort!
xo CGF
We (half) make pizza on our own too. Why half? 'cos we bought the ready made dough which is already flattened and round, already into a pizza shape and size then (this is the self-make part) put in all the sausages, cheese (whole family is cheese crazy...hmmm...maybe you can consider that as our family icon), ham, pepperoni and shredded chicken (we are more like carnivores).
We have got lots of other habits which is much of a ritual or routine, but food, nah, kids are too 'inconsistent'.
Ten was th usual age to be allowed to use the stove and oven unaccompanied where I grew up
Ten was th usual age to be allowed to use the stove and oven unaccompanied where I grew up
Our big weekly food tradition is pancakes on Sunday. I never miss a Sunday, and have been known to stoically whip up some batter while battling the worst colds. But other than that, we don't have too many traditions---one severely finicky child takes care of that.
We also do pizza on Friday and usually we do order it, but this past Friday I made it! Weekend mornings are always Daddy's pancakes usually with chocolate chips and bananas.
Other than that our schedule is just too varied, but these two are pretty firm.
Making homemade pizza is one of my fondest childhood memories. I used to have pizza-making birthday parties where everyone got there own.
We order pizza from The Man every Wednesday night - makes hump day more bearable.
Question, Beck. My pizza dough wears me out trying to roll it. We do several, because we have some big eaters here now. But I tend to not do pizza so much lately because it's so much work with that dough! I did buy some dough softener, but the directions say to use a lot, making it rather expensive. Any thoughts?
I'm too tired to think about traditions. I should be in bed already, but I'm also IN A MOOD.
Hope everyone is healing up well over your way.
We don't have a set pizza night, although when we do it's generally on a weekend and it's definitely homemade! I use my KitchenAid to make it and it's so stinkin' easy! We mix it up. Supreme or Pepperoni or Cheeseburger pizzas... we make whatever we have on hand. One thing the kids have figured out is whenever we DO have pizza, we watch a movie too. It didn't take them long to catch on.
We have too many foods that mean "home" for our family. But my favorite part of dinner is hearing The Girl say, "This is my favorite! Well, actually... everything you make is my favorite, but I really like this meal!" It happens every. single. night. I love it!
well now it looks like we are into making chocolate cupcakes every week.
We have pizza every Sunday night--not homemade though, because we can't make a pizza that my family loves more than Amy's Organic soy cheese pizza.
When my daughter comes home, she always asks me to make her a fried egg sandwich. She says I make the best and she craves them. Well, that's nice, but kind of indicates my level of cooking skills. However, when I go back to my childhood home, I always like to have my mom's casserole, 7-layer dinner, which is my comfort food. But the one food that reminds me of my childhood are my grandma's homemade buns. Every Saturday, she would make them and one of us would go up the hill where she lived to get some for our dinner. They smelled so wonderful, walking back home carrying them in their bowl with the tea towel covering them. I can smell them right now.
That picture of your husband startled me because that is exactly how I pictured him in my mind when reading your blog (at least, the back of his head anyway.) But the glasses and everything! Weird.
And I AM going to try making my own pizza- it's on the list of "things to do to be a better mom." (But until it happens, we order them from the pizza shop on the corner.)
We make pizza at home so often and so exclusively that my children marvel at there being such a thing as Pizza Stores! aka Pizza Hut.
I'm gonna try broccoli on pizza -- seems like a natural marriage of melted cheese and...well, really anything is better with melty cheese.
Homemade pizza - memories of childhood. *SIGH* We do this every weekend, too. It's so much fun. I used to make a kick-**s pizza with a cornbread crust and broccoli (among other things, but weirdly no tomato sauce) but I've lost the recipe. Maybe with the wonder of the internet I can find something similar again.
Every Saturday morning Scott makes biscuits and scrambled eggs for breakfast. There is a mutiny if/when he does not.
Also, speaking of small kitchens and weird photo angles, the photographer who came to our house had to stand on a chair to take this photo of Scott. Everyone who knows our house asks where she was standing/did she hang from the ceiling.
http://nowheymama.blogspot.com/2008/01/vote-fer-mah-man.html
Mmmm....love homemade pizza. With pesto instead of tomato sauce, and caramelized onions, feta and mozzerella as the topping....mmmm....damn diet.
is the oven only for pizza? any suggestions on making rolling the dough out easier??
What do you do about the gluten in the pizza dough?
Can I come for dinner one Friday? It looks like such fun. I am not much of a pizza eater so I don't make it very often with the kids, but you have just given me new resolve.