Happy Kids Pizza and Cheese-stuffed Breadsticks

Good pizza is expensive. Making everyone happy with the toppings on that pizza without ordering 20 pizzas is nearly impossible. By the time you add bread sticks to the order, you feel like you've just paid for heart attacks for all of your family when you see the grease on their fingers and plates. Yikes! That's just not a happy scenario. Try this instead. It's less greasy, less expensive and exactly what everyone wants! (They can't complain about it if they make it themselves, right?)

Happy Kids Pizza
1 or 2 cans biscuits (depends on how many pizzas and bread sticks you want to make)
1 can spaghetti sauce
shredded cheese (I like mozzarella.)
pizza toppings (pepperoni, diced ham, sausage, olives, pineapple, green pepper... whatever you/they want/have!)

Heat the oven to 350. Have the kids mash 2 or 3 biscuits together and stretch/pound it into the shape they want their pizza. Add 1 or 2 Tbsp. spaghetti sauce on the top surface of the dough, sprinkle with cheese and add the toppings. (TIP: This is a BIG tip. It makes life SO much easier (and kids happier) if you have them build their pizzas on a greased cookie sheet. Trying to transfer these babies post-toppings is VERY difficult and often ends up in a necessary conversion from pizza to calzone.) Once everyone has their pizza the way they want it, bake them (the pizzas, not the kids) in the oven until cooked through, about 10 minutes.

Cheese-stuffed Bread sticks
string cheese (One cheese makes two bread sticks, so judge how many you need by how many you want.)
1 can biscuits
garlic salt

Heat oven to 350. Have the kids mash 2 biscuits together, then roll into "snakes" and flatten. Place half (split lengthwise) of a string cheese on the flattened dough and fold up the sides and ends of the dough to cover the cheese. (Rolling these again helps seal the dough and makes it less likely that the cheese will melt out of the seams and burn, but it's a little tricky. They might need a little help from you.) Sprinkle the sealed project with a little garlic salt, then bake for about 10 minutes.

*Notice how convenient it is that both of these recipes bake at the same temperature for the same amount of time? Take advantage of that! Less dishes= more play time for you!

*Another nice thing, if you're making these together, is that you'll have leftover sauce from making pizzas to use as dipping sauce for the bread sticks.

After stuffing your face shamelessly while your kids do the same thing, pat yourself on the back. You just accomplished the nearly impossible task of pleasing everyone at once with pizza for dinner while saving money AND making pizza and bread sticks less greasy! Wow, you rock!