Homemaking Tip: Deep Dish Pizza

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Something that strikes fear into the heart of men (actually, just mostly women) is the first time your daughter asks you if she can cook a meal. You want to teach her to be the perfect homemaker, like you are, but your mind starts to wander to what will actually take place during this first lesson. There will be the confusion about what kind of utensils to use, what kind of bowls and pots, where you have the cream of tartar (what IS that, anyway?), and complicated mathematical fractions will have to be solved as the measuring cups and spoons come out. And the mess....the mess....Need I say more?

Let me assure you, faithful readers, if you can try to get through this most difficult of homemaking challenges, you WILL see the fruits of your labors. The following is a chronicle of how my thirteen-year-old created a deep dish pizza completely unassisted...and it was the BEST pizza I've EVER had in ALL my life!

Disclaimer: Kyla and I take absolutely NO credit for creating this recipe. She found it on The Food Network, one of her favorite places to find good ideas. Here is the link.

Disclaimer 2: I haven't read enough of these kinds of cooking posts to know what I'm doing, so bear with me.

Okay, I just looked at the recipe again and it says it's copyrighted, so I will just post pictures of my daughter creating this meal without telling you the exact ingredients. Just click the link above, where it says "here". Okay, fine, you can click here, too. Hopefully the pictures will serve their purpose in causing your mouth to water and encouraging you to teach your kids to do this, too!

The dough, mentally preparing to rise (and I can say that because the yeast is truly a living organism)...

The onions, garlic and bell peppers...

The onions, garlic and bell peppers sauteing. This smelled unbelievably good.

The cornmeal, just because it's in a cute bag. Actually, you sprinkle this on the greased cookie sheet to make for easy removal of the pizza.

The pizza right before it's entrance into the flaming inferno. Actually, it was an electric oven, so there were no flames.

An action shot of Kyla introducing the pizza into the oven. For some reason, the 12-year-old is about to eat a spoon of the corn meal and the two-year-old is about to open Grandpa's jar of jalapenos. I JUST realized that just now as I was looking closely at the photo. Now, I can tell you that he never did get the jar opened because I don't remember any forlorn screaming that night. It was a good night.

Kyla reviewing her recipe to make sure she got it right...Reid actually eating the cornmeal, and Johnny moving onto the the Vlasic pickle jar. Thank goodness for pickle distraction or there could have been a jalapeno fiasco.

Reid's face after trying the cornmeal...Johnny giving up on opening jars altogether and I don't know what Kyla is doing.

Here is what this baby looked like when it was finally finished. It was to die for. While it was cooking, Kyla also made a fresh peach pie for dessert. All of this took three hours, and we didn't actually sit down to eat until 8:30 at night, but it was a night to remember!

And since she worked so hard, I cleaned up the mess...and that was okay.