For those of you readers who are moms, you know that the hour before dinner is the hour of absolute Craziness. It’s the hour of jumping off couches, wrestle with the dog, jump as close to the dog as possible without actually jumping on the dog, wrestle with each other, slide down the hallway on pillows that are supposed to be boats..general mayhem. At least in my house. Now, in a pinch I will turn on the TV. But, most nights, I try to go with the flow. And I have been trying to get them in the kitchen cooking at least once per week- a) I can manage my children better and b) this is actually more peaceful than worrying about what they are doing every second. I have been using the “let’s make pizza” management technique and it works wonderfully! (Moms, this is not a clean recipe at all- so plan on a big bowl of salad for your side dish).

So here goes, trash your kitchen, entertain your kids, and cook at the same time!

Exhibit A: Flour

Directions: Spread flour all around. No volcano’s allowed…just spread the flour out.

Exhibit B: Dough

Add dough to cutting board and mash it up..add more flour and spread out.

Exhibit C: Make a circle? or a Rectangle?? No holey dough! And add the pizza sauce.

Exhibit D: Don’t eat all the red sauce Ryan!

Exhibit E: Add the cheese to the pizza, please??? Each were given little piles of cheese to eat, and then were instructed to spread the cheese out! Ha, they spread it out, then ate more.

Exhibit F: Add some olives to the pizza, not the entire JAR!??

So, at this point the camerawoman had to go supervise and get that pizza in the oven before they ate it all! You can always throw on some spinach as a veggie, or anything in your cupboard, but on this night, this was strictly cheese, olives and pepperoni. They all loved it!