They say one of the best ways to get your kids to eat healthy is to get them involved in the cooking process. Every Wednesday at our house is pizza night. I know, pizza has a bad rap as a junk food, but when your pizza is homemade, you know all the ingredients and can load it up with good stuff. Starting with the red sauce. As far as I'm concerned, it's one of the healthiest things my 3 year old eats.

You can make your own dough, but we get ours at Spinelli's in Park Hill. Jerry Spinelli can give you tips on how to make a really good pizza.


One of the keys is to leave the dough out on your countertop to let it get nice and warm and fluffy. You can leave it out all day. Dough has to rise.

While the dough is rising, we make a big batch of sauce (and freeze it in little containers for future use, it lasts us about two months).


The sauce is easy: 1 cup of extra virgin olive oil, 3 big cans of tomato puree, 5-10 cloves of garlic, slightly smashed (you'll fish these out later), 1/8 tsp of salt and pepper, and a heaping tablespoon of oregano. Mix, and simmer for a couple of hours.




We wash up again (the first thing a chef does is wash his hands), don our aprons and chef toques, and then we pat it, and roll it, and eat a little bit, and roll it some more.




Spread the sauce, and put on the toppings. My boy prefers cheese, but he eats the green & red peppers and pepperoni while he's putting them on the adult pizza. A chef after my own heart. Make sure you get good mozzarella cheese. If you're watching calories, go easy on the mozzarella cheese and heavy on the sauce to increase the good stuff and minimize the bad.



Heat the oven to 425, and cook for 15 minutes. If you cook two at a time, watch the bottom one, it'll get done quicker.

Belive me, when he's made it, he eats it.