At The Kids' Table!

While I was in New Hampshire over the holidays I unearthed my very first cookbook, liberating it after so many years from the dank (and as I’ve long suspected, haunted) cellar in my parents’ house.

Easy to Make Good to Eat (1976) by Martha Olson Condit, available exlusively through my first grade Scholastic Book Club, offered a bunch of interactive recipes intended to get children and their folks involved with cooking. 

I figure at least a few of you have wee ones and may sometimes find yourselves wracking your brains for ways to entertain them. Over the years, I’ve offered some kid-friendly suggestions here, including recipes for hot dog octopuses, sloppy joes with blackeyed peas, and of course, how to eat jellybeans for breakfast. For the worst thing I ever made when I was a kid, click here. 

And now, a peek into Easy to Make Good to Eat! Apart from shakes and open-face sandwiches listed in the cookbook, I totally remember making these Mini Pizzas (and my first fondant as well, but we needn’t go into that here). So, I recently whipped up a couple pizzas wrought from English muffins, ketchup, and a few Kraft Singles lurking in the fridge (they never really expire). 

You know what? Still delicious!

And a bonus for the adults—these Mini Pizzas absolutely slay late-nite munchies. 

Mini Pizza
Adaptred from Easy to Make Good to Eat by Martha Olson Condit

Ingredients:
English muffins
Ketchup
Slices of American cheese
Oregano
Somes grated Parmesan cheese

This is what you do:

Ask a grown-up to turn the oven on.
It should be set at 350 degrees.

1. Take 2 muffins. Use a fork to split them. You will have four pieces. Toast them. Put the pieces on the cookie sheet. Keep the cut side up.

2. Do these things to each piece of muffin:
Spread 1 tablespoon of ketchup over it. Put a slice of cheese on the ketchup. Sprinkle 3 pinches of oregano over the cheese.
Shake some Parmesan cheese all over the top.

3. Use a pot holder in each hand.
Put the cookie sheet in the oven.
Wait for 10 minutes.
Use your pot holders. Open the oven door.
Look Has the cheese melted? Yes.
Then the pizzas are done. Put the cookie sheet on the cutting board.
Use the spatula and lift one pizza out and put it on a plate
Put two pizzas on a plate.

Ask a grown-up to turn the oven off.

Now you know how to make a good ‘filler-upper.’ It is pretty too.

Do enjoy and oh yes, whatever you do any time you set a table, by all means make it pretty!