Pizza chefs

Whenever I make dinner, assuming there's no raw meat handling involved, the kids are welcome to join me in stirring, chopping, mixing, kneading. Often they're off playing instead, but if they wander into the kitchen with an urge to cook, I try to welcome them.

It works especially well when I happen to be working on a "Friday Night Pizza" recipe, which I've been making here and there -- and not necessarily on Friday nights -- ever since I read Barbara Kingsolver's book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" a couple years back. It's a perfect recipe for two young cooks since it makes two pizzas. We split the dough in two and let them do their own kneading, and they each get to roll out their own pizza dough and spread sauce on it. (My short-cut for pizza sauce now is one 15-oz can of plain tomato sauce with a teaspoon each of dried basil and oregano mixed in. It's just enough to cover two pizzas.) We added carmelized red onions, red peppers and fresh basil, oregano and of course cheese to our pies, and Rob later sauteed some chili peppers, garlic and extra onions on the side so that he and I could enjoy the kind of pizza that makes you break a sweat.

Here are a couple pictures from our kneading session. The camera was not cooperating; hence the ghostly chefs.