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Top baked pizza with fresh herbs: it's so crazy-good it's like a trick, only it's really easy.

Dough, before rising. . .

. . . and after.

This is an ugly photo, but I wanted you to see that I grabbed sauce, salsa, pesto, and corn all from the freezer. Then there was a stinky hunk of blue cheese in foil and a can of pineapple. The only thing I bought special was the mozzarella.

Okay, step by step: the dough is pulled into an irregular shape and laid on the cornmeal-dusted peel.

Topped with garlicky olive oil (to prevent sog) and sliced red onions.

And sauce.

And cheese.

I sliced the zukes with a peeler so they'd cook really fast on top of the pizza.

Plus, they look so pretty!

I also made this one. . .

. . . and this one.

Honestly, it seemed like so much.

Especially since the kids were making their own.

I figured they wouldn't even finish theirs.

But then it wasn't like that.

I think I forget how big they've gotten. Or that we have a pregnant woman in the house and had friends over.

Or that they've all become such adventurous eaters that the onion and blue cheese and tomatillo salsa were not the deterrents they once were. All of which is to say: not a scrap was leftover. Neither crust nor crumb. Sigh.

Each of our kids gets one "Special Day" a year, during which they get to pick all the family activities, including one meal out, one thing that costs money (a museum, say, or bowling), and all the games and snacks. Comically, they each pick the same things every year, and it can be hard to tell sometimes if they still actually love them, or if they pick them out of sentimental habit. For instance, the Children's Museum yesterday, where I watched Ben and Birdy galumph through the climbing structure like caged giraffes, their long legs tucked up under them at awkward angles. They played on the pretend ambulance and splashed at the water table and I read the New Yorker, and kept to myself the fact that the museum was designed with the developmental interests of three-year-olds in mind.

It was Birdy's special day, so we also made candy flowers from this book, had a "deviled egg picnic," ate sushi for dinner, and watched the baby movies. Suffice it to say, I do not dissuade her from this activity. Last night it was the videos from when she was around one and a half, and my eyes filled with tears over and over like those birthday candles that you can never blow out. I would be hard-pressed to pick a favorite scene. It might be 4-year-old Ben, wrapped in a black silk cape and a black feather boa, a black wool cap propped jauntily on his small head, singing "I'm just a little black rain cloud"--like something the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence might perform at the Folsom Street Fair if they suddenly got into Pooh. Birdy herself is jolly and fat and haloed with feathery hair, and she keeps pointing at Ben and saying, "Das Bun!" like she's having this kind of ongoing kind of merry-Eureka moment about his identity. There is much dancing, much inducing of Birdy to sing happy birthday ("Uppy to you!") and say hippopotamus ("Aboobanges!") and jump (she squats all the way down so that her giant diapered butt is touching the floor, then leaps up ineffectively to achieve a nanometer or so of loft. Then she claps for herself).

Michael appears to do all the videotaping, and after a while it becomes apparent why this is: I have turned into a sofa. Or wait, am I lying on the sofa? It's one of these things, but it's impossible to tell which. I seem to laugh a lot, from the couch which I have become or where I am always lying, and the kids often dart over and kiss me, but I am struck by how utterly exhausted I look all the time, as though the lactic gravity of my breasts and the weight of my eyebags are literally pinning me down.

One of my favorite scenes, though, is of Ben and Birdy eating lunch at the table. Birdy herself is spooning up yogurt and every time Michael asks her what Ben is eating, she leans exaggeratedly over from the highchair to lay her eyeball on his slice of pizza, then sits up and announces, "Scamboo eggy, Daddy!" "Is that a scrambled egg, Birdy?" Michael asks, and she leans all the way over again and says, "Yes, Daddy! Scamboo eggy!" In the next scene, she is actually eating her own ("Scamboo eggy hot, Daddy!") and it becomes apparent that she was just angling, in her own comical way, for Michael to make her one.

Okay, that's not an ideal segue to a pizza recipe, but there it is. We make pizza fairly often. Partly it's because it is so good you could just cry. But partly it's because I'm not afraid of dough, we often have odds and ends of cheese and vegetables to use up, and the kids love to make and top their own pizzas. I usually get ours started baking (For the grown-ups I made one with roasted tomato sauce, peeler-shaved zukes, mozzarella, blue cheese, and fresh basil, one with tomatillo salsa and corn, and one with pesto, tomatoes, and mozzarella ) and then I give the kids each a little ball of dough on a piece of parchment and let them shape and top their own pizzas from an assortment of garlicky olive oil, sauce, grated cheese, and whatever else there is (canned pineapple, red onions, pesto, capers, smoked cheese, ham, olives, etc.) I leave theirs on the parchment and bake it on the pizza stone that way.

I am including directions for all ways of doing this, and you can make it if you do or don't have a mixer or food processor, if you do or don't have a pizza stone. However, if you get at all serious about it, I think it's worth investing in a pizza peel (which is like a cross between a thin cutting board and a shovel, and is how you jerk the floppy uncooked pizza onto the hot stone without setting yourself on fire) and a pizza stone, which browns and crisps the crust beautifully. Our stone is this one, and I like it. Our peel is this one, and you just can't argue with a company called "Best," can you? While I'm at it, I love love love this cutter.

Pizza
Serves 6-8
Active time: 1 hour; total time: 2 hours

You certainly don't need to make your own pizza dough--you can buy it fresh from your pizzeria or frozen from your market--but dough is easy to get the hang of, it's cheap to make, and it feels good to make it yourself. Feel free to experiment with the flour--rye and wheat make nice additions, as do wholesome flax meal and wheat germ, and all white is great too, if less than optimally nutritious--just don't skimp on the salt, or the crust will taste bland.

Dough ingredients:
1 3/4 cups warm water
1 envelope (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast
A pinch of sugar
3 cups all-purpose white flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour (or 4 cups all-purpose white flour)
1 tablespoon each toasted wheat germ and ground flax seed (both optional)
3 teaspoons Kosher salt (or half as much table salt)
2 tablespoons olive oil
Cornmeal for dusting the peel or pan

Sprinkle the yeast over the water in the measuring cup, add the pinch of sugar, and leave it to soften for about five minutes.

Meanwhile pulse all the flour in a food processor with the wheat germ, flax meal, if you're using them, and the salt.

Add the oil to the yeast mixture and then, with the processor running, pour the liquid into the feed tube. The dough should cohere and form a ball that sits on top of the blade. If it doesn't, it's either too wet or too dry, and you should add water or flour accordingly, a tablespoon at a time, pulsing until the ball forms.

Use a rubber spatula to scrape the dough (it will be sticky) onto your lightly floured counter, sprinkle it lightly with flour, and knead 2 or 3 times to form it into a ball. Place it in an oiled bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, and leave it in a warm place to rise for about an hour, or until it looks twice as big as it used to.

(If you're using a standing mixer, proceed through step 1, then pour the yeast mixture into the bowl of the mixer with the oil. Using the paddle attachment, mix in the dry ingredients on low speed (see step 3 above to adjust dough if it seems too wet or too dry) then switch to the dough hook and knead around 5 or so minutes, until the dough is smooth and springy. Proceed with step 4 above.

If you're making the dough by hand, proceed through step 1, then pour the yeast mixture into a large bowl with the oil, and use a wooden spoon to stir in the dry ingredients until the mixture coheres into a mass of dough. Use a rubber spatula to turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, then knead, adding as little flour as possible, until the dough feels smooth and springy--around 8 or so minutes. Proceed from the middle of step 4 above.)

Stick your fist in flour and then plunge it into the dough, then turn the dough out onto your lightly floured counter, knead once or twice, use a sharp knife to cut it into the desired number of pieces--4 for 12-inch pizzas, 8 for 6-inch pizzas, or some combination (I did 3 bigger ones and 4 small ones for kids)--then shape each piece into a smooth ball, cover the balls loosely with that same piece of plastic wrap, and let them rest for 5 minutes.

Shaping the dough is a trial-and-error situation: the idea is to stretch it in a kind of coaxing way until it's very thin but not tearing. Begin by using the heels your hands to flatten the dough as much as possible, then hold the dough down in the middle with one hand while you use the fingers of the other to gently pull the dough outwards all around its perimeter. If it stops stretching, leave it to rest for a few minutes, then come back to it. Try holding the dough aloft on your knuckles and gently stretch and turn it, letting gravity do some of the work for you until the dough is a quarter inch (or less) thick. If a hole does form, do your best to pinch it closed. Kids can do quite well stretching their dough to a 6-inch size, and you don't need to worry if it's a bit thick because they really won't care. Nor will anyone care if the crusts are perfectly round. (Mine are often amoeba-shaped.)

Place your stretched crust onto a wooden pizza peel that has been heavily dusted with cornmeal (if you're going to be baking it on a pizza stone) or onto a pan that has been brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with cornmeal, then proceed with topping and baking, below.

Basic Pizza
This is our basic method for topping and baking a single 12-inch pizza. For smaller or larger pizzas, simply adjust the amounts of sauce, cheese, and time. And, of course, you can add any toppings you like.

Ingredients:
1 12-inch crust, shaped and prepared as above
Olive oil for brushing (add crushed garlic, if you like)
1/2 cup sauce (I used this)
6 ounces freshly grated mozzarella (I like Polly-o brand whole-milk mozzarella; don't bother using the expensive fresh kind for this)

Turn the oven to 500, and heat either the oven itself or a pizza stone on the bottom rack for half an hour while you prepare the pizza.

Brush the crust with olive oil (this keeps the crust from getting soggy), then spread the sauce over it and top with cheese.

Now slide the pizza from the peel to the heated stone (this requires a jerking motion, plenty of cornmeal, and a bit of practice) and bake for 5-10 minutes until the crust is brown and the cheese is bubbling. If you aren't using a pizza stone, place the pan onto the very floor of the oven and bake for 4 minutes, then move it to a high rack and bake another 2-6 minutes, until the crust is brown and the cheese is bubbling.

Use tongs or a spatula to move pizza to a cooling rack for a few minutes (this keeps the crust from steaming and sogging), then move it to a cutting board, slice it up, and devour.

Corn and Tomatillo Pizza
I am kind of famous for this pizza--with grownups, at least, although kids will happily eat it on account of the corn, and also of its being, you know, pizza. I often make it in the heart of the summer with fresh tomatillos and corn sliced off the cob--but canned and frozen work just fine too.

1 12-inch crust, shaped and prepared as above
Olive oil, for brushing
Sliced red onion
1/2 cup tomatillo sauce (recipe below) or jarred tomatillo salsa doctored with lime juice and zest, chopped cilantro, and sugar
1 cup fresh corn kernels or frozen corn, thawed (I just run hot water over it in a sieve)
4 ounces Monterey jack cheese, grated

Follow the steps for Basic Pizza above, sprinkling the corn over the sauce before adding the cheese. Bake as directed.

Tomatillo Sauce
1 1/2 cups fresh tomatillos
1 jalapeno, stem trimmed and seeds removed
1 large clove of garlic, smashed and peeled
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (or half as much table salt)
Juice and grated rind of half a lime
1/4 cup packed cilantro leaves

Broil the tomatillos and chile on a baking sheet until the skins blister (5 or 10 minutes) and blacken, then whir them (juice, blackened skins, and all) with the remaining ingredients. Add salt to taste and, depending on the sweetness of the tomatillos, more or less sugar or lime juice.