"Make Your Own Darned Dinner" Dinner Date

Don't you just daydream about saying that some (or, most) days? Last night, we made Neko and Abby responsible for making their own dinner! (you know... within reason!) The girls had a blast constructing pizza and painting cookie masterpieces.

Super Easy Pizza Dough

(seriously - it's super easy)
Makes four 6-inch pizza crusts

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
1 1/2 tsp coarse salt
1 envelope rapid-rise yeast (or 1/4 oz)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 cup cold water

Pulse the flours, cornmeal, salt, and yeast together in a food processor. With the processor running, add the olive oil and then water in a steady stream. Process until dough just comes together in a ball.

Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead a few times, until it is smooth and elastic. Place it in a resealable bag. Let rise until about doubled - either about 2 hours at room temperature, or overnight in the refrigerator.

Divide the dough into 4 balls. Cover them with a clean towel and let rise until puffy, about 20 minutes.

Stretch the dough balls into 6-inch pizza crusts. Top as desired (set out bowls of toppings for the kids and let them have at it!) and bake at 450F for about 10 minutes.

Cookie Paintings
(can you guess which one Celeste painted and which ones the girls did?)

2/3 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 egg whites (save the yolks for your "paint")
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
separated eggs and food dye for paints

Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy. Beat in egg whites and vanilla extract. Stir in baking powder, salt, and flour until combined. Scrape the dough onto a floured work surface and knead until a smooth ball forms. Divide dough into four balls and shape each into a disk. Cover the disks with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator until firm (at least an hour, or overnight).

Preheat the oven to 375F. Roll out the dough and cut out squares (your "canvasses"!), re-rolling the scraps as needed.

Separate eggs into ramekins, using one yolk (or white) for each color. Whisk each yolk (or white) with 1 Tbsp of water and desired dye until a smooth, watery paint forms. Using clean (let me stress CLEAN) paintbrushes, let your kids use the paints to decorate each cookie.

Transfer painted cookies to greased cookie sheets. Our cookies were about 4"x6" and baked for about 9 minutes, but watch them carefully (baking time will vary by the size of your cookies).