Kids in the Kitchen: Stuffed Crust Pizza

This is a guest post brought to you by Samantha Schultz:

Samantha Schultz writes about all things life and parenthood on her blog, The Peanuts Gang. With two boys (Charlie & Jack) and a high school sweetheart hubby, they experience the adventures of this crazed life – sharing along the way. She and her family live just outside Chicago.

One of our family’s favorites is pizza and for a while, our Friday nights consisted of any variation of pizza – store bought, frozen, pizza place, semi-homemade. A huge favorite is Pizza Hut’s stuffed crust pizza and so I thought I’d venture to make my own version (along with my own crust!)  This is also a great way to get kids involved!

Whole Wheat Pizza Crust

Ingredients

1 cup lukewarm water

1 pkg. active dry yeast

1 tsp. sugar

2 1/2 cups flour whole wheat

1 tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. olive oil

Stir together the water, yeast, and sugar. Then, set aside for about 5 minutes until the mixture starts to foam. If it doesn’t foam, your yeast may be old or inactive or your water was too warm, thus “killing.”

Next, add the flour, salt, and olive oil. Mix until dough comes together. On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough for 8 minutes, until it’s smooth and elastic. Add flour if dough is overly sticky. (Jim did this part because I didn’t think I could do it for five minutes! You an also use your Kitchen-Aid mixer to knead it for you!)

Place the dough in an oiled bowl and turn to coat all over. Cover with a towel or plastic wrap and set aside in a warm place for an hour, until doubled. (I placed mine in an off oven and that worked just fine!)

Easy, right? It really was that simple. You can also use all-purpose flour instead of the wheat.

Homemade Stuffed Crust Pizza

Ingredients

Pizza dough (homemade or otherwise)

String cheese (we used ten for this large rectangle)

Sauce

Pizza toppings (we did pepperoni, mozzarella cheese, green peppers and onions)

Roll the dough out into one or two pizzas. (Ours made one large rectangle), leaving a little extra dough on the edges for folding over. Unwrap string cheese, put against the sides and then roll the crust over to cover the cheese.

Add all your pizza toppings, in the order you like them. Bake on a preheated pizza stone at 425 degrees for 15-20 minutes, until bubbly and golden.

It shall also be noted that I did NOT pre-heat my stone. I wanted Charlie to be able to help and knew that a burning pan would not be a good idea! The pizza still came out great!

Did you have fun in the “kitchen” this week?  Did you try a new food or a new kid friendly restaurant?  Did your little ones use their snacks to count to 10?  We invite you to share your experiences, photos, stories or recipes that include your #kidsinthekitchen!

Come join Sara from Sensibly Sara and myself each week by linking up a post, new or old, that features the theme Kids in the Kitchen.  Don’t have a blog?  That’s ok!  Just share an Instagram photo or Facebook update in the comments.  It doesn’t matter what you are doing as long as you are doing it together, enjoying it and learning something along the way.

• preparing healthy snacks
• having a tea party
• counting skills with m&ms
• pouring from measuring cups
• discovering a local restaurant that your kids love
• creating new family friendly recipes