The one good thing about the fasting month is that I don’t need to start cooking early in the day. I can wait till evening before I start clanking my pots and dancing to its rhythm in the kitchen. But that also means that I have to think up fast, easy but nutritious meals (this might be subjective, depending on whether you consider sausages as a health hazard or not) for my kids who are still a little too young to fast a whole day. So while they’re in training, it means that I still have to prepare something for them.

Unwilling to do too much clanking and dancing around the whole day, for fear that I wear the parquet flooring in the kitchen thin, I felt that a little fun and a few more pairs of hands and feet in the kitchen would make preparing these brief lunches a lot more entertaining for me and educational for my kids. So I called my fantastic assistants to assist me in this yummy-licious simple but fun meal for them to devour. It was a wonderful cooking session and the kids enjoyed themselves before, during and after the meal was prepared. They even got to name the recipe - Bread Pizza!

Ingredients:
6 slices of bread
12 tbsps pizza sauce
1/4 onion - chopped
3 tbsp sliced button mushrooms (in can)- drained
2 sausages - sliced thinly
mozarella cheese
parmesan cheese
1 tsp butter

Method:

1. Preheat oven 350F.
2. In a small pan, saute sausage with butter and onion.
3. Remove from heat and cooled when sausages are done.
4. Lightly grease a baking tray with a little butter.
5. Place the bread slices in the tray.
6. Spread the bread evenly with the pizza sauce. Not too much so that the bread will not become soggy.
7. Place mushrooms and sausages on the bread.
8. Sprinkle both cheese to cover the bread.
9. Place in oven and bake for about 10 minutes or until cheese is melted.
10. Garnish with tomato slices and topped with chopped parsley.
11. Serve hot with juice or tea.

Before

After

Tips:

• For a little more oomph, slice red chilies thinly and sprinkle before spreading the cheese.
• Substitute the toppings with whatever you like. Sausage and mushrooms sit well with my kids.
• The ingredients above are my guess-timation. It’s really up to you how much and what you want to put on your bread pizza. It’s supposed to be versatile and fun!
• Don’t remove the crust. It becomes nice and crispy after the warming up in the oven.

Oh…and before I forget, how was it educational?

They learnt how to take turns, negotiate who gets to put which topping, and what it means to distribute the ingredients evenly. They had a quick session on science as well - Understanding Matter: How the butter changed from solid to liquid.