This Old School Cafeteria Pizza recipe captures the essence of all that was good in the school cafeterias of our youth. (Cafeteria ladies not included.)
This fall marked a real Mama Milestone for me. After 28 years of recording the first day of school with a photo each year, and then sending my girls off to preschool, and kindergarten, and grade school, and middle school, and finally high school – times five! – I faced my baby’s first day of Senior year – and my last “1st Day of School.”
All but the youngest have gone off to college now too, but as anyone who has ever done so will tell you, sending a child off to college is an entirely different experience from packing them off to first grade. Anyway, this rite of passage got me reminiscing, and as I got online to update Em’s lunch account, I got to thinking about the cafeteria and the school lunches of my childhood.
I grew up in Northeast Portland and attended the same elementary school from kindergarten through the eighth grade; and in that time, I figure I ate nearly 1500 meals in our basement cafeteria. More than two-thirds were “hot lunches.”
To Make this Recipe You’Il Need the following ingredients:
Crust:
Flour
Powdered milk
Sugar
Quick rise yeast
Salt
Warm water (105-110 degrees)
Vegetable oil
Filling:
Ground chuck
Salt
Pepper
Block mozzarella cheese – grated yourself (To be authentic school pizza, you will have to use imitation mozzarella shreds.)
Sauce (I make sauce the day before):6oz can tomato paste
Water
Olive oil
Cloves garlic minced
Salt
Pepper
Dried oregano
Dried basil
