COOL VEGGIE PIZZA

In honor of the late Sophia Petrillo, and the fact that pizza is Italian, allow me to set the scene...picture it: small town in Illinois, 1994. Pampered Chef party, hosted by one of my mom's best friends and put on by the mom of my best friend. 

Twenty ladies and their children listen as Jeri works her magic, telling about all the wonders of the products she is selling, just like an infomercial, but even better because she is hilarious and the ultimate people person/saleswoman.

And then, cue the singing angels, she brings out the trays of snacks prepared on/with her miraculous kitchen gadgets. And one of those snacks just happens to be, you guessed it, COOL VEGGIE PIZZA.

Summery veggies, creamy tangy "sauce"...it's like taking a bite of sunshine. When I'm craving warm weather food in the middle of winter, this is exactly what I dream of.

I've changed the recipe a million times, but it always tastes delicious. Cool Veggie Pizza just happens to be one of my all-time favorite foods (if you couldn't figure that out by the fact that I remember every detail of the Pampered Chef party twenty years ago where I had my first taste) and one of my go-to potluck recipes. The girls at work used to go bananas for this stuff, and I guess it's time to share my secret recipe.

Here's your ingredient list:

One roll of refrigerated pizza dough (I generally ALWAYS burn the first one, so maybe buy two just in case.)

Your favorite raw veggies, cleaned and chopped (Dave likes cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers, and black olives the best, but sometimes I add zucchini or carrots or broccoli.)

One 8 oz package of cream cheese

One cup of sour cream

One packet of ranch dip mix

2 cups of finely shredded Mozzerela cheese

Roll your pizza dough out onto a greased cookie sheet, use your fingers to press it to the edges, and poke a bunch of holes in it with a fork. 

Read the instructions on the package and bake for the shortest amount of time recommended.

My dough said 9-12 minutes so I checked it after 8 and it was perfect. Just keep your eye on it...take it out when the edges are just starting to turn golden-brown, like this:

Let the baked crust cool for a few minutes, and when the pan has cooled enough for you to touch it, move it to the fridge to finish chilling out.

Now it's time to mix the cream cheese, sour cream and ranch dip mix. 

I never ever remember to set my cream cheese out to soften, so after making this a million times and getting ticked off at myself, I came up with a solution. Just use the mixer!

Voila!

As a bonus, with this method you and your tiny human get to lick the beaters. :)

Kinley liked it so much, she decided to give her little chicken a taste, too.

Okay, "sauce" is done.

If you are making this ahead of time for a potluck or dinner, wait to do these next steps until you are ready to eat it. Cool Veggie Pizza doesn't keep very well, it gets pretty soggy. When I used to make it for work potlucks, I would do everything up to this point the night before and then assemble it right before I left my house in the morning.

Go grab your chilled pizza crust and slather on your ranch cream cheese mixture.

Here's a handy tip: it's really hard to slice Cool Veggie Pizza after you put all the toppings on, so it's a good idea to just do it at this point after the cream cheese mixture is evenly spread.

Now, pile on the veggies...

Just squish the veggies down into the cream cheese by firmly pushing them down with the palm of your hand. That just makes eating the pizza a little easier and a lot less messy.

Now, you can stop there, but Dave had the idea of adding cheese to the top, and since we gave that a go, we haven't gone without.

If you do want to use cheese, now's the time to sprinkle it on.

Yummmmmmmmmm. :)

I made this for our weekly Wednesday dinner with my parents last week and this is all that remained:

Apparently I am not the only one who loves a cold pizza around here! Haha.

This stuff is definitely not healthy, but, man-oh-man, is it yummy. And, hey, it might even get your kiddo to eat some veggies! It didn't work on Kinley--she had mac and cheese as usual--but ranch on anything is usually a kid-pleaser, right?

The original recipe called for Italian dressing mix and it's super yummy in this, too. Just another option.

Talking about Sophia Petrillo at the beginning of this post got me thinking about cheesecake, so I'm off to whip one up. 

Crap.

It'll have to wait a couple of hours though because guess who forgot to set out the cream cheese...

WE NEED A SCHEDULE

Yesterday was kind of awful.

We got up at noon, ate lunch, and went to Sam's Club. All of that was smooth sailing and, bonus, Kinley fell asleep in the car on the way home.

I smoothly transferred her from her car seat to her crib and she didn't even open her eyes a teensy crack! I patted myself on the back on my way downstairs, made plans in my head to finally get the mop out, and headed back out to the garage to unload the ginormous bag of tortilla chips, jug of salsa, and 5 lb flat of strawberries. No sooner had I put one foot back in the house, she woke up. Screaming. 

Sigh.

It was pretty much like all the days we've been having lately. SuperBaby has come to the conclusion that naps are lame and unnecessary, so she will no longer be participating.

Unfortunately, after 4 or 5 major meltdowns yesterday, it seems she clearly still needs a nap. 

She cried when I used the word "scoot" while we were playing. I'm assuming that was because that is also the word I use to tell her to back away from the oven when I am removing hot things from it, and just like her momma, Kinley does not like to be bossed.

She cried while I mopped because, although she could see me, I was more than 5 feet from her.

She cried because I turned on the shower, peeled a banana without her, drew a puppy with sidewalk chalk, helped her open a flap in her Spot book, and ate the Teddy Graham she shoved in my mouth. No explanation for any of these.

Needless to say, it was a long and patience-trying day. And the two before it were exactly the same. Something had to give.

Duh. She needs a schedule!

I know how important schedules are to littles, so why it didn't occur to me until breaking point to make one for Princess SuperBaby is beyond me. Now that it has occurred to me though, I am not wasting another precious day!

First of all, getting up at noon (or 1:00) is over. Sorry, Kin. You can do that again on  weekends in 15 years. I think 10:00 sounds perfect.

And I know we need books/songs/flashcards time, sensory/art time, and tons of play/outside time. Plus, we definitely need NAP TIME. Period.

Here's our first tentative schedule:

10:00   Wake-up/brush teeth/clothes on

10:30   Breakfast

11:15   Books/songs/flashcards

12:00   Playtime 

1:30     Lunch/TV time

2:30     Playtime

4:00     Nap

5:00     Sensory/art or playtime

6:15     Walk with Daddy

7:00     Dinner

8:00     Bath

8:45     Hang out with Mom and Dad

10:00   Bedtime

This is my wishful thinking schedule, so I'm already guessing a lot will change, but we needed a jumping-off point.

I'm also assuming the first couple of weeks are going to continue to be fussy and awful, but hopefully Kinley will catch on quickly and we will both be so much happier.

Fingers crossed!

Just in case this plan fails and the screaming continues, I'm gonna head back to Sam's Club today and pick up an economy sized jug of wine and bottle of Tylenol. This time I'll know not to get my hopes up if she falls asleep in the car. :)

FLUFFY WHITE CLOUD DOUGH

The recipe for our favorite fluffy cloud dough and all of the details for playing with it have moved over to our brand-new website and are in a list of our top ten ultimate favorite

CREATIVE PLAY IDEAS FOR BABIES + TODDLERS

See you over there!

xo Cara

MOTHER'S DAY GIFT IDEA

I have such a bad habit of dreaming up huge homemade present ideas and then waiting until the exact last possible minute to get started on them. This Mother's Day is, unfortunately, no exception. I keep seeing all these cute painted Mason jar vases on Pinterest and decided that was the perfect present for both of Kinley's Grammas. They both love flowers and have gardens and what better way to show off your homegrown beauties than a rustic vase painted by your way-too-cute grandbaby? 

Well, bad news.

I waited until today, of course, to go on the hunt for Mason jars and, surprise, no stores that I had time to search had them. 

So, Plan B, I decided Kinley would just paint terra cotta pots for the Grammas to show off their homegrown flowers in progress.

Bad news again. No terra cotta anywhere. Just lots and lots of plastic. You would think at some point I would learn my lesson and start presents that require many steps and gathering supplies more than two days before I want to hand them, in all their wrapped glory, to their recipient.

Anyway, I had to come up with a Plan C on the fly. Kinley and I headed to the glass containers aisle at Meijer to see if there was ANYTHING that could work. While SuperBaby sat in the plastic pool she insisted I carry with us and played with a little Nerf ball that we weren't buying, a ray of light shone on my head and angels started singing: A CANDY JAR! That's it!

LEMONADE POKE CAKE

This gloomy, yucky day called for a super yummy, sunshine-y treat, and when I think sunshine and sugar I think of my Nana's lemonade cake. Oh my gosh, it's so delicious and so simple--perfect!

When I was growing up, my whole family would get together at Nanny and Grampy's for Sunday dinner. It wasn't a formal thing, just a casual, fun, wear your sweatpants, laugh and eat and start-the-week-out-right kind of a meal. I have so many fantastic memories from those days--entertaining my cousins, trying to impress my beyond cool aunts, hugs, a million games of Seven-Up, teasing, birthday dinners...I could go on, but I'll spare you. ;)