Welcome to Kitchen Classroom, where America’s Test Kitchen Kids is sharing a weekly set of kid-tested and kid-approved recipes, hands-on experiments, and activities paired with suggestions for how to bring learning to life in the kitchen. Visit www.americastestkitchen.com/kids/activities/kitchen-classroom for more recipes.
This week, kids can turn family dinner into pizza night with an easy Sheet Pan Pizza, learn all about the cabbage family of vegetables while making Roasted Broccoli, and discover the secret to the perfect slushy texture of our Frozen Raspberry Lime Rickeys.
Sheet Pan Pizza
Turn any night into homemade pizza night with this kid-approved recipe. Make your own Pizza Dough (or use store-bought), whip up the no-cook pizza sauce, and then sprinkle on the cheeses (more on them in the Learning Moment, below). You can also add your favorite pizza toppings, from pepperoni to peppers to pineapple and more! Spraying the rimmed baking sheet with vegetable oil spray and brushing it with extra-virgin olive oil makes sure the pizza doesn’t stick to the pan and gives it an extra-crispy crust.
What You’ll Need:
Vegetable oil spray
2 tablespoons plus 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, measured separately
1 pound pizza dough, room temperature (Homemade or store-bought pizza dough both work)
1 (14.5 oz) can whole peeled tomatoes, opened
1 garlic clove, peeled
½ teaspoon red wine vinegar
½ teaspoon dried oregano
¼ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
Spray rimmed baking sheet with vegetable oil spray. Use pastry brush to evenly coat baking sheet with 2 tablespoons oil.
Place pizza dough on greased baking sheet and turn to coat with oil on both sides. Use your hands to pat and stretch dough into 10-by-6-inch rectangle. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in warm place until bubbly and doubled in size, 1 to 1½ hours.
Use your hands to gently pat and stretch dough into corners of baking sheet. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise in warm place until puffy, about 45 minutes.
While dough rises, adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 450 degrees. Set colander in sink. Pour tomatoes into colander. Shake colander and drain well.
Transfer drained tomatoes to food processor. Add remaining 1 tablespoon oil, garlic, vinegar, oregano, salt, and pepper. Lock lid into place. Process mixture until smooth, about 30 seconds. Stop food processor. Carefully remove food processor blade (ask an adult for help). Transfer sauce to medium bowl.
When dough is ready, spoon sauce over dough and use back of spoon to spread into even layer, leaving ½-inch border around edges. Evenly sprinkle mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses over top of sauce.
Place baking sheet in oven and bake until cheeses are well browned and bubbling, 15 to 20 minutes.
Use oven mitts to remove baking sheet from oven (ask an adult for help). Place baking sheet on cooling rack and let pizza cool for 5 minutes.
Use spatula to loosen edges of pizza, then carefully slide pizza onto cutting board (baking sheet will be hot). Use pizza wheel or chef’s knife to cut pizza into squares and serve.
Learning Moment
Science (Chemistry):
In this recipe, kids sprinkle two different cheeses over their Sheet Pan Pizza: mozzarella and Parmesan. Both cheeses have an important role to play—ask kids why they think they’re using both cheeses on their pizza. Explain that they’re going to do a science experiment—and a taste test—to find out!
Use the large holes of a box grater to shred about 2 tablespoons of mozzarella cheese and 2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese, keeping the cheeses in separate piles. (Note that for your pizza, you’ll be grating the Parmesan cheese using a rasp-style grater, not shredding it with a box grater.)
Have kids taste a bit of mozzarella and a bit of Parmesan. How would they describe each cheese’s flavor (how it tastes and smells) and texture (what it feels like)?
Use a butter knife or chef’s knife to cut a slice of bread in half.
Sprinkle the remaining shredded mozzarella cheese on one half-slice of bread and place on one side of a microwave-safe plate.
Sprinkle the remaining shredded Parmesan cheese on second half-slice of bread and place on the other side of the microwave-safe plate.
Microwave the bread slices until the cheeses are melted, 15 to 30 seconds.
Remove the plate from the microwave (ask an adult for help).
Have kids observe the two cheeses: What do they notice about each? Do they look the same or different?
Have kids take a bite of each slice of bread to taste the two different cheeses. Ask kids: What do they taste like? What is their texture like? Are they the same or different? How so?
Explain to kids that mozzarella is great at melting. It brings gooey, melty, stretchy deliciousness to our pizza. Why is such a stellar melter? Mozzarella is a very moist cheese—it contains a lot of water. All that water keeps proteins in the mozzarella farther apart and makes them loose and flowy and flexible when they heat up. And what makes mozzarella stretchy? As mozzarella is made, the cheese curds are pulled and stretched, over and over again. All that stretching makes mozzarella’s proteins line up in neat rows. Then, when mozzarella heats up, its proteins flow in those neat lines, making it stretch!
Parmesan cheese, on the other hand, brings the flavor to the pizza party. Parmesan is an aged cheese. It sits in carefully controlled conditions for sometimes a year or more before we eat it. As it ages, Parmesan loses water through evaporation, which makes its flavor much more concentrated. The flip side to not have much water? Parmesan isn’t very good at melting—its proteins cling together much more tightly than mozzarella—they’re not as loose and flowy when they heat up. We add Parmesan to pizza purely for its savory, nutty flavor.
Roasted Broccoli
Roasting might just be the best way to cook fall vegetables. The intense heat of the oven causes excess moisture to evaporate, leaving veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, winter squash, or carrots with a crispy, browned exterior. The parchment paper in this recipe helps keep the vegetables from sticking to the pan; if you don’t have any, you can use aluminum foil or a silicone baking mat instead.
What You’ll Need:
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
¼ teaspoon salt
Pinch pepper
6 cups broccoli florets, large florets cut in half
1 lemon, cut into wedges
Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 450 degrees. Line rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
In large bowl, whisk together oil, salt, and pepper. Add broccoli to bowl and use your hands to toss until broccoli is evenly coated with oil mixture.
Transfer broccoli to baking sheet. Arrange broccoli in single layer, placing flat sides down when possible.
Place baking sheet in oven and roast broccoli until lightly browned, about 10 minutes.
Use oven mitts to remove baking sheet from oven (ask an adult for help) and place on cooling rack. Use spatula to transfer broccoli to serving dish. Serve broccoli with lemon wedges.
Learning Moment
Science (Botany):
Before tossing the broccoli with oil in step 2, have kids observe some of the broccoli florets up close. (If you have a magnifying glass, this would be a great time to use it!) Ask kids:
What do you notice about the broccoli?
Are there parts of it that look different from other parts?
What do the different parts look like, feel like, or smell like?
Explain to kids that broccoli grows from a thick, tough stalk. That stalk then grows branches of small green flower buds that grow in clusters, which are the tender florets. Can kids see that the floret tops of their broccoli look like flower buds? Have any started to open into tiny, yellow flowers? (Those are OK to eat!)
Tell kids that broccoli is a member of the cabbage family (also known to plant scientists as the brassica genus). Just like how people have families, plants do, too. Plant scientists group plants into families when they grow in similar ways and have similar characteristics. Other members of the cabbage family that are similar to broccoli are cauliflower and romanesco, as they also have thick stalks and tender flower buds that grow in clusters. Some other members of the cabbage family are kale, collard greens, Brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, and (of course!) cabbage. They’re more like cousins to broccoli than cauliflower or romanesco (which are more like siblings), but all of these vegetables grow in similar ways. If you have any other vegetables that are members of the cabbage family on hand, have kids observe them next to the broccoli to see how they are similar and different.
Take It Further
Science (Botany):
Broccoli is an example of what plant scientists would call a vegetable, because we eat its stalks and flower buds. You can also eat the leaves of some vegetables, or their roots, which grow underground. Fruit, on the other hand, is the part of a plant that grows from a flower and contains seeds inside. A fruit has a skin on the outside (which may be thick or thin), its insides are usually juicy, and it contains one or more seeds.
Frozen Raspberry Lime Rickeys
Get a taste of summer with this sweet and tart slush! Kids will learn about the freezing points of different liquids before they blend their fruity beverages. If you don’t have raspberries, kids can get creative and flavor their frozen limeade with a different flavored Simple Syrup.
What You’ll Need:
1 cup sugar
4½ cups cold water
6 tablespoons Raspberry Simple Syrup
Cut 1 lime in half through both ends. Lay lime halves, flat side down, on cutting board, then cut each half crosswise into thin semicircles.
Add lime slices and sugar to large bowl. Use potato masher to mash sugar and lime slices together until sugar is completely wet, about 1 minute. Set aside.
Cut remaining 6 limes in half crosswise. Use citrus juicer to squeeze lime juice into bowl with sugar and lime slices.
Pour water into bowl and use rubber spatula to stir mixture until sugar is completely dissolved, about 1 minute.
Set fine-mesh strainer over large pitcher. Carefully pour mixture through strainer into bowl. Use rubber spatula to stir and press on limes to get out as much juice as possible. Discard lime slices in strainer.
Carefully pour half of lime mixture into 2 ice cube trays. Place trays in freezer and freeze until frozen solid, 2 to 3 hours. Place remaining lime juice mixture in refrigerator.
When limeade cubes are frozen, pop them out of ice cube trays and add to blender jar. Pour remaining lime juice mixture over top, along with 6 tablespoons Raspberry Simple Syrup.
Place lid on top of blender and hold firmly in place with folded dish towel. Turn on blender and process until smooth, 30 to 60 seconds. Stop blender. Pour into glasses and serve immediately.
September 19, 2020 at 10:00AM
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Sheet Pan Pizza And Roasted Broccoli | Living | greenevillesun.com - Greeneville Sun
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