Isn't this what every parent feels like when school is in session?
Dinner is really important to me. Even though our kids are getting older and sometimes our teenager would rather be in the living room playing Xbox while shoveling food in his mouth, it's important to me that we all eat as a family as much as possible.
It might not be perfect (far from it), it might not be candlelight and an episode of The Voice might just be blaring in the background. BUT, we are together. At the table. Enjoying food. Having discussions. And being a family.
This is the glue.
Weekends can get a little willy nilly on the family dinner front.
After cooking every day of the week the weekends are pretty loose. Sometimes we even have apples and popcorn for dinner! Pick your jaws up, Supermoms. It's okay to be an appetizer mom every once in awhile.
Have any of you ever seen the movie Mermaids with Cher and Winona Ryder? It is one of my favorites and Cher's character made ONLY appetizers for every meal. I kind of loved it.
This weekend I decided to break out the Frigo Cheeseheads String Cheese that Saputo so graciously sent me a while back. We are a cheese loving family.
Who's not?!
Well, I guess lactose intolerant people.
I apologize for my unabashed love for cheese.
I've always loved string cheese too.
Little known (embarrassing) fact: my mom used to limit my intake of string cheese because I obviously have an addictive personality and might have become a tad bit attached to the stringy goodness.
My kiddos love string cheese and especially Frigo Cheeseheads. Especially my picky eater. He loves things he can reach in the fridge and grab on his own because he eats a lot. But he doesn't eat a lot of different things. String cheese would be one of the foods he grabs and munches pretty frequently. The fit perfectly in lunch boxes and we love a good fruit and cheese lunch around these parts. Toss in slices of apples (sprinkled with lemon juice--a brown apple is a big turn off to kids) and a few string cheese along some Goldfish and a juice box. Perfect lunch. And they'll actually eat it all! I also like to take string cheese with us to T's football games. The perfectly portable snack.
It was rainy here all weekend. Which means the store is not somewhere I wanted to go. I wanted to be on my couch, watching movies and basking in the glow of doing nothing.
I have children...so all of THAT would be impossible. But, I was able to finagle myself out of going to the grocery store by digging in the fridge and pantry and finding enough goodies to throw together for dinner.
Here is what I dug up:
A jar o' marinara
Oregano
Basil
Garlic Powder
Turkey Pepperoni
Frigo Cheeseheads string cheese
Can o' biscuits
Would I have rather have had pizza crust?? Heck to the yes. But the recipe I use for homemade pizza crust takes a few hours to rise and we didn't have time for that.
Or I was too lazy to do it when we did have time.
Whichever.
But the biscuits worked in a pinch. I try to keep one can in the fridge for situations like this. They are pretty handy. You can make donuts, mini pizzas, dumplings...you name it. I prefer my dough from scratch but this definitely works.
Next I scrounged up a recipe. Well, I searched my Pinterest boards. And I found a recipe for Pizza Balls.
I have boys so the mere mention of the word 'balls' tends to cause laughter but that's okay. These balls are worth it.
Hee hee
You can find the recipe over at A Kitchen Muse.
Next, I cut a handful of string cheese in half...realized that was way too big and chopped them into fourths and fifths. This isn't rocket science. Just chop the cheese into pieces.
You could definitely just use pieces of pizza dough here as well.
Top the biscuit with pepperoni and cheese and whatever else you like on your pizza. You can't fit a ton in the little babies but you can try!
The fold everything in and create a little pizza ball. Spray your baking pan. Line them up in a row.
Next I sprinkled oregano, basil and garlic powder over the top.
Then I popped them in a 350 oven for about 20-25 minutes....and this happened.
Golden, toasty, melt-y yummy pizza goodness.
I served ours with a side of warm marinara in a little dipping bowl.
The kids loved it.
R was the first to try and her face tells you the rest.
Perfect late afternoon snack/early dinner to kick off the weekend.
G told me he would love these in his lunchbox. We could make that happen too. A thermos filled with pizza balls. Perfect.
Grab some Frigo Cheeseheads String Cheese and see what you can come up with!! And come back and let me know! I'm always looking for fun recipes to share with the family.
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