Pumpkin Pizza

Yesterday I wrote that it appeared some sort of toy and snack food bomb had exploded in my house. Well, if we had a bomb explosion yesterday, then today we appear to have encountered some sort of toddler tornado. Today was costume party day, and for about three and a half hours this afternoon, our home was bursting at the seams with cookie devouring, costume adorned, messy, adorable, wonderful munchkins. Two babies, five toddlers, and two preschoolers, cleverly disguised as a colourful assortment of barnyard animals, bumblebees, butterflies and princesses.  It was total, absolute chaos. And I loved every minute of it.

For lunch we had one of my kid-party favourites – “decorate-your-own” mini pizzas. Kids LOVE making their own pizzas, so this is a fun activity for any party. But for Halloween, I decided to add a little twist…

Pumpkin Pizzas

Pilsbury pizza dough (or homemade pizza dough, if you are feeling ambitious)

Pizza sauce

Cheddar cheese, grated

Your choice of toppings:

Pepperoni (cut into triangles for a traditional Jack-O-Lantern look)

Red peppers (cut into long thin slices, for mouths)

Pineapple, mushrooms, onions, green peppers (cubed, for eyes and noses)

To make pumpkin shaped pizza crusts, roll out pizza dough and use a round cookie cutter (or almost anything round, such as the rim of a bowl or mug, depending on the size you would like your pizzas to be) to cut a round mini pizza crust. Use your finger to form a slight indent (as though making a heart shape) at the top of the “pumpkin”. Cut a small rectangle out of pizza dough and attach to the indented portion of the pizza crust to form a “stem”. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and bake crusts roughly 7-8 minutes on a cookie sheet sprayed with non-stick spray.  One roll of pizza dough yields roughly 2 adult-sized and 3 child-sized mini pizzas.

Prepare your pizza crusts ahead of time, then allow your little ones to decorate their own pumpkin pizzas! The cheddar cheese gives the pumpkins their orange colour, and toppings placed on top of the cheese will form your jack-o-lantern face. So simple – yet so much fun! Happy pumpkin eating!