Pizzas on parade! This weekend some of my grandkids and I had great fun creating a number of unique and funny faces on mini pizzas for lunch.
The Funny Face Pizzas turned out to be a tasty pizza sandwich parade right at home. The kitchen might have gotten messy and the counter may not have ended up to be the most organized - but it was just fine because we had fun! The kids were ages 4 to 6 and may have been slightly young for this task, but in their minds they were all artists in residence for the day.
Making pizzas together are a new experience for us. We usually decorate cookies or mix up chocolate chip cookies, their all time favorite. Decorating individual pizzas is very easy, but I must admit I did prepare some of the ingredients ahead of time. This enabled the kids to get right into creating the faces. We even gave each face a name and each funny pizza face seemingly took on a personality.
Before the kids arrived I washed and cut-up the various vegetables we would use for the faces. I cut cheese slices with a small star cookie cutter for one of the faces (I had some pictures for us to use as examples). The sandwich thins were also split and toasted so that task was out of the way before we started creating the faces.
Here is where the kids come in. Each child spread 2 teaspoons pizza sauce onto their sandwich thin.
Then we placed a slice of American cheese on top. This serves as the canvas when creating the face.
The “sky is the limit” for ways to decorate the faces. I will show you some ideas and then share the kids’ creations with you.
Meet Pierre the Pizza Man…
Use a white American cheese slice. Then use a thick slice of red onion for the mouth. Place a fresh mushroom slice upside-down for a nose. You need to place a black olive slice on top of a mini pepperoni slice for each eye. I found pepperoni comes in a couple of different sizes. The eyebrows can either be thin strips of green onion or chives.
Meet Robbie Rabbit…
Use a white American cheese slice for this face, too. Cut a thin green pepper ring to use for the mouth. On top of the center point of this strip, place a mini pepperoni slice for the nose. Two slices of pimiento-stuffed green olives are the eyes. Place three carrot shreds on each side of the face for whiskers. I purchased pre-shredded carrot since it is very convenient to use. Finally cut one regular-size pepperoni slice in half and position the halves for the ears.
Meet Freddy Freckles…
Use a slice of yellow American cheese for this face. Cut a curved, thin strip of green pepper to the length you want the mouth to be. Place it onto the cheese. Then, place half of a ripe olive for the nose and two cherry tomato slices for the eyes. Snip fresh chives and make “freckles” for each cheek. For the eyelashes use Parmesan cheese shreds.
Meet “Starry-Eyed” Sam…
Yellow American cheese is used for this face. Cut a curved, thin strip of green pepper to form the mouth. The nose is a ripe olive half. The layered eyes are a slice of pepperoni topped with a white American cheese tiny star cut-out. Then short pieces of parsley are placed under the pepperoni for eyelashes.
Meet Magnificent Mortimer…
Use a slice of white American cheese for this face. Cut a thin, curved and creative-shaped strip from a slice of pepperoni. Place this pepperoni strip onto the face and add half a pepperoni slice for a tongue. A thick wedge of green bell pepper is used for the nose. The layered eyes are yellow American cheese circles topped with mini pepperoni slices. Tuck a very thin strip of red onion under each eye for the lashes.
The kids created their own pizza faces. Riley, who is four years old, was intrigued with all the wonderful ingredients and tried to include everything on her pizza.
Here is Riley’s funny face pizza.
Mark, 4 years old, too, liked the Freddy Freckles pizza face suggestion. Here is his creation.
Finally, even baby Zach enjoyed the experience not so much from the art of creating the pizza but the art of devouring a pizza face. His vote, “Delicious!”
We had fun and pizzas were on parade. I would encourage you to try this activity, too. It is a perfect beginning way to teach kids about cooking. Tell me about your creations and comment here or rate and review the recipe, Funny Face Pizzas.
On Thursday Liz shares about a favorite meal her kids love especially for supper on Halloween night, October 31.