happy new year, wtfers!
as always, we’re just busy living over here! school is back, activities have resumed, and ed welcomed a whole new BABY to the fam!?! pretty major! we’re also working on a really fun little project that you’ll hear more about soon - it’s all happening.
in the meantime, i’m here to speak with you about a topic that is very important to many of us: pizza.
specifically, pizza night. pizza movie night, actually, which is my family’s lil’ friday night tradition.
it’s my favourite for many reasons. here’s a list.
pizza is life, everybody knows that. it’s a perfect food and i wanna eat it every day.
i love movies, and especially sharing my favourite childhood movies with my kids. i usually try to show off a classic, but we also enjoy finding new things to watch together. recently, we all really loved the new adam sandler netflix cartoon, leo.
knowing that friday dinner is sorted eliminates a whole day’s worth of thinking about what’s for dinner. love that for me!
little family traditions like this are so fun! together time is the best time.
pizza night is a choose your own adventure situation that always ends in pizza. which is the best!
kids will, almost always, eat pizza without complaining. especially in front of the TV. this meal is the world’s easiest win.
before every pizza movie night (PMN), it’s important to do a pizza night vibe check: do you feel like doing a small, medium or large amount of work?
SMALL: takeout, delivery or frozen pizza. done.
MEDIUM: lil’ DIY. you can even involve the kids if you wanna! pita/tortilla pizza is the easiest route, and a perfect gateway pizza for the littlest pizzaiolo. or, get your hands on some pre-made dough. just add sauce, cheese & toppings.
LARGE: full DIY. go for it and make everything yourself. it takes a few days so you gotta plan ahead, but i can vouch for this recipe for dough and this recipe for sauce. be careful though, once you start making your own pizza from scratch it can quickly become an obsession. are you ready for it? on the one hand, pizza. but on the other, there will be a thin coating of flour all over everything for as long as you’re in the pizza zone. it will take over your thoughts. it will become your whole personality. pizza is a lifestyle.
the other day, i did my vibe check and landed on medium. so i got all the stuff from the italian grocery store in my neighbourhood (shoutout to alimentari), and as an experiment, handed the pizza reigns over to my children. to my surprise and delight, they took it very seriously and did an incredible job! whaaat?!
my eldest kid is really into square slices right now, so we went that route and just pressed the dough into a couple parchment-lined quarter sheet trays and let them at it. they did eat many fistfulls of mozzarella and stacks of pepperoni in between each addition to their pies, but the end results were solid.
the oven was set to it’s maximum temperature (i think it was 525F), we baked them for about 12-15 minutes and in the end had 2 perfect granny pies! i made a quick lil’ salad for a side, sliced up some fruit for the kids and used my handy kitchen scissors to cut the ‘za.
(kitchen tip: cut stuff with scissors)
we had 2 slices leftover which our 4 year old ate for breakfast the next day (that’s my boy!), but usually we freeze extras for some quick and easy meals for the days and ahead.
SO! if you haven’t already, please consider this your sign to introduce pizza movie night to your lives. and if you’re already on the PMN train, tell me: what are you watching this week?! what are your go-to toppings?! in my house we’re all about plain cheese, margarita, or those pepperonis that curl up into lil’ pep cups. mmmm….pep cups….
ok, until next time!
yours pizza pal,
kt
PS: are you following us on instagram? recently we’ve made some pocket salads, a wacky toasted western and some green pasta.