The Mom I Want to Be

 

Cheese Pizza Day is a day to chow down with one of America’s favorite meals. Pizza is a favorite of young and old. Originating from Italian cuisine, it’s a staple in the American diet. For many American families “Pizza night” is a Friday or Saturday routine. It’s also popular at parties. You can have Cheese Pizza anyway you want. There’s thin or thick crust. Extra cheese is the “norm” for many cheese pizza lovers.  

 

 

 

Garlic and Herb Three Cheese Pizza

 

1 ball fresh pizza dough, store bought or from your favorite pizzeria

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

Handful parsley leaves, finely chopped

1 cup ricotta cheese

1 (5-ounce) round soft cheese with herbs, crumbled (recommended: Boursin)

1 teaspoon lemon zest, eyeball it

2 cups shredded sharp provolone cheese

Few sprigs fresh thyme, leaves chopped or 1/2 teaspoon dried

 

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.  Stretch dough out and form a thin round. Use a little flour or cornmeal on your hands if dough sticks. Mix the garlic, parsley, ricotta, herb cheese and lemon zest. Spread the soft cheese mixture across the pizza dough to the edges then top with an even layer of provolone. Scatter thyme over the cheese mixture. Bake until crisp and bubbly-brown on top, 18 to 20 minutes.

 

 

Pizza Collage Craft

 

Paper Bag

Magazines and/or Construction Paper

Glue Stick or Zip Dry Glue

Scissors

 

Cut a large circle out of the paper bag. This will be your “pizza crust”. Start out by finding red objects in magazines (or you can use red construction paper). Tear our the red objects (or construction paper shapes) and glue them on your “pizza crust” to resemble the “pizza sauce”. Don’t cover the entire crust, you want to have the crust showing around the edge!  After you get all your red pieces glued on to make your “pizza sauce”, you want to find yellowish (or white) objects in the magazines (or use construction paper) and follow the same procedure to make the “pizza cheese”. Once you have the cheese on, you can decide what else you want on your pizza! For example, tear out round shapes from reddish objects to make pepperoni, tear out small, odd shapes from brown objects to make sausage, tear out green shapes to make green peppers, etc. NOTE: Instead of using magazine pictures or construction paper, you can use scrap material, wallpaper samples, or anything else you can find laying around that are appropriate colors for your pizza toppings!

 

 

Sauce a Pizza Game

 

4 Brown Pieces of Felt

4 Red Pieces of Felt

4 Yellow Pieces of Felt

Felt – other colors as desired

Unused Pizza Box (or a shoe box, etc)

A Die

 

Cut a large circle out of each piece of brown felt. This will be your “pizza crust”. Cut circles out of the red felt that are about 1 inch smaller than your brown circles. This will be your “pizza sauce”. Cut 4 even smaller circles out of the yellow felt to be the “pizza cheese”. You will need to use different colored felt to cut out other pizza toppings. You will need 4 sets of 3 other toppings; such as 4 sets of green peppers, 4 sets of black olives, and 4 sets of pepperoni. Choose whatever toppings you like.  Use an unused pizza box, or other box, to store your game and die. On the lid of the box, or another convenient spot write down each number on the die and a pizza part that goes with it. Like this:

 

1 = Pizza Crust

2 = Pizza Sauce

3 = Pizza Cheese

4 = Pepperoni (or other topping of choice)

5 = Green Peppers (or other topping of choice)

6 = Black Olives (or other topping of choice)

 

Numbers 1 thru 3 must be the crust, sauce, and cheese in that order; but numbers 4 thru 6 can be whatever toppings you choose.

 

Once all your pizza pieces are cut and your box is prepared, you can play the game! This game is played like ‘Cootie’ if you are familiar with that game. The object of the game is to roll the die and create a pizza. Everyone starts with nothing. All players take turns rolling the die, when someone rolls a 1 they get to take a pizza crust piece. Once a person has their crust, they then need to roll a 2 and put the sauce on the pizza. Then they need to roll a 3 to get the cheese for their pizza. The rest of the numbers and pizza parts can be gotten in any order. The first person to finish making a pizza with all the toppings wins the game!

 

Fun books about Pizza:

 

Curious George and the Pizza  By: Margaret Rey, 1985

Hi, Pizza Man  By: Virgina Walter, 1995

Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza  By: Philemon Sturges, 1999

Pete’s a Pizza  By: Walter Steig, 1998

Pizza Fun  By: Judy Bastyra, 1997