Pretzel Pizza

I don't know about you, but every Friday here at the Millet house it's pizza and smoothie night. It's an easy tradition, the kids (and adults) love it and basically it's a no-brainer for me menu planning wise. Over the years we've experimented with several different types of pizza crust recipes, methods for baking (using a stone or not etc.) all in search of the best possible pizza. Recently we struck gold when I combined this divine pretzel recipe with the goodness of pizza toppings in a moment of culinary brilliance. Thus the Pretzel Pizza was born!

Friday Night Pretzel Pizza

INGREDIENTS:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
1 cup very warm water

Combine dry ingredients in a mixer and add water slowly. Knead in a machine or by hand (yikes!) for at least 5 minutes until dough is nice and soft. Transfer the dough to a greased gallon-sized ziploc bag. Allow to rise in a warm spot for at least an hour or until double.

Once dough has risen, punch it down and roll out into a 11"x16" rectangle. I bake ours on a silpat mat so to make my life easier I just roll it out on top of the silpat; essentially just a little bit smaller than the mat. If you don't have one of these amazing inventions, you could also use parchment paper to the same effect. It mostly helps when you are trying to transfer the pizza from the counter to the pan which can be tricky without something underneath the dough.

My helper. I don't know why he's wearing a helmet -- probably because cooking can be dangerous!

Excuse my grainy phone pictures, some child of mine had colored with permanent marker on the lens of our camera.... 

 Place toppings longwise down the middle of the rectangle of dough. Using a pizza cutter, make diagonal slices to the toppings (about 1/3 of the way to the middle) every 2 inches on both long sides of the rectangle. The boys like pepperoni and cheese but I like to throw on whatever veggies are hanging out in the fridge.

Starting at one end overlap the cut edges over toppings, alternating sides. It'll sorta make a lattice top. Braid all the way down. Brush the finished pizza with egg whites and bake at 500 degrees for 12 minutes until nicely brown. Slice and serve hot with marinara sauce for dipping.

The kids love it...

 And Travis loves it (mostly because he doesn't have to deal with that pesky pizza sauce). 

A new Millet family tradition. Enjoy!

18 months

Our little man has finally reached a year and a half!

At his 18 month checkup he was 20lbs 11oz (finally!) and about 33 inches tall. He's grown so much in the past few months.

Benji is hilarious. And stubborn. And so snuggly. And giggly. And sometimes even pretty whiny.

We love all the faces of our little man.

He loves eating, books, hats and shoes, going outside, Peter, coloring (especially on his body), and animals of all kinds. 

Still no words ('DA!' or 'tttthhhith' is about all we get so far) or an official first haircut (look at those curls though!) but he is obviously one monkey-crazy kid.

We love you little man.

Halloween Proper

Halloween this year was pretty festive for the Millets. 

For family night we carved pumpkins

and ate lots of yummy treats.

 Peter dressed up as a "pirrrrate" for preschool and had a ball at their little class party. 

 That night led to more merriment (and sugar) at our church's trunk-or-treat.

Benji kept hanging around the dessert table and snagged at least 3 of these cupcakes (that I saw). He then proceeded to eat only the frosting off them. 

Peter cracked us up with his 'hook.' 

We finally made it out to the trunk-or-treat itself. 

 Where Benji refused to eat any candy except suckers while Peter was less discriminating and quickly gobbled up anything in sight. 

And then there's my fancy Dorothy costume which I actually made myself.

Without a pattern.

Including my spiffy ruby slippers. 

Which used to be hot pink vinyl slides I got from Old Navy for like $2 years ago.

It's amazing what a little lot of spray adhesive and glitter will do.