Life's little interruptions, pizza, and birthday cake ~ KitchyMama Meals

If you have little kiddos running around your house, you will already know the toll, the stomach flu can have on a house. Our laundry is backed up a mile long, the meal plan may as well have been put through the shredder, and Kitchy Mama threw the towel in about halfway through Wednesday!

But, the super mom in me, just couldn't give up entirely---my son turned three yesterday and birthdays are cause for celebration! The plan was to make homemade pizza and unveil an amazing (if I do say so myself) Lightning McQueen cake for his birthday dinner, but here's how things actually went:

My daughter got sick on Monday night (all over me)--and that was just the beginning! About two days and 12 outfits (each) later she was just starting to feel better when my stomach started feeling kinda SKETCHY. There was lots of work to be done before I gave into feeling sick. So, I pushed onward finishing the cake, making the pizza dough, trying to pull it together so Sawyer would have a great birthday.

It wasn't pretty, but we made it through the day. The cake was done and I was just about to start on the pizza, when Sawyer starts saying...."mommy, I don't feel so well." My heart sank...poor kid...he was going to be sick on this birthday! Sure enough, 20 minutes later I was patting his back as he leaned over the toilet. (is this too graphic?)

Well, I wasn't going to give a sick kid, pizza and cake....so, I made Ramen Noodles (which nobody ate) and my husband I thought we could all watch a movie together. Sawyer had never seen Finding Nemo, so we put it in....He was TERRIFIED! So 15 minutes later, we were watching Go, Diego Go and I was sitting in the Fetal position on the Lazyboy wishing I could escape this night. My hero husband cleaned the kitchen and got the kids ready for bed and I finally did get to escape and go off to sleep.

The good news is that everyone woke up mostly healthy and I think this family is getting back on track, but because of life's little interruptions, I am foregoing the regular meal plan and just posting my pizza recipe and links to the awesome cake recipe and pattern. Hopefully we will get back on track over the weekend.

When I asked Sawyer, what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday, he asked for a Lighning McQueen cake. I was a bit nervous, because I am not an artist and I didn't know if I could pull of the detail work. As I was surfing the internet looking for ideas, Sawyer saw all these great looking Lighning Cakes and got SUPER excited.

I tried to tell him that I wasn't sure I could do it....his response? "Yes you can mommy, I know you can." Apparently that was all the encouragement I needed because here is the finished product. And if you think I am just using my blog to show off....well you are absolutely right!

I got the cake idea from Andrea Meyers at Andreasrecipes.com and made a mini version of her Lightning McQueen cake using just one 9x13 cake. However, when I splurge on a dessert, it has to be made of chocolate, drenched in chocolate or oozing with chocolate, so I bypassed the yellow cake and headed off to find a fabulous chocolate cake recipe. The result was moist and decadent and I highly recommend this recipe found at i am baker.

There really is nothing healthy about the cake, but it is made from scratch. So it won't make you skinny, but you will feel really proud of yourself when you are done baking it!

We made the pizza with whole grain crust and topped half with tomato sauce and turkey pepperoni while the other half was topped with garlic sauce, chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, and baby spinach.

Whole Grain Pizza Recipe:

Ingredients:

Dough

1 1/2 tsp Raw Honey

1 1/4 cups Warm Water

1 tbsp Active Dry Yeast

1/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 tsp Salt

1 1/2 cups All-purpose Flour

2 1/2 cups Whole Grain Flour

Tomato Sauce (makes enough for two pizzas)

16 oz Tomato Sauce

1 tbsp Oregano

2 tsp Garlic Powder

1 tsp Italian Seasoning

1 tsp Red Pepper Flakes

1/2 tsp Ground Black Pepper

1/4 tsp Salt

Garlic Sauce: (makes enough for one pizza)

1 tbsp light butter

1 tbsp light mayo

1 tbsp sour cream or plain yogurt (Greek if you have it)

1 clove garlic

2 tbsp onion, finely chopped

1/4 tsp black pepper

1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

Directions:

Dissolve yeast in water. Add salt, oil, and honey and let sit for about 5 minutes for yeast to dissolve. Add flours and knead until smooth, adding a little flour if too sticky.

Spray large bowl with non-stick cooking spray. Put dough into bowl and roll in oil. Cover and let rise until dough doubles in size (about 2 hours). I put mine in the oven (turned off) to keep it out of drafts.

Makes dough for 2 pizzas, cut into 8 slices or one extra large pizza.

For the tomato sauce, mix tomato sauce and spices. I like to make the sauce when I make the dough and let it sit in the fridge for a couple of hours to let the flavors marinate.

For the garlic sauce, melt butter in small saucepan. Saute onion and garlic in butter until onion is tender. Remove from heat. In a bowl mix remaining ingredients and add garlic butter mixture. stir until combined and cheese is melted.

Prebake the crust at 400 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Then top with sauce and your choice of toppings and bake at 400 for an additional 10-15 minutes.