THE DISH: Four Ways to Up Your Homemade Pizza Game 🍕🤩🧀

There are four elements to most pizzas—dough, sauce, toppings and cheese. By upgrading each, pizza becomes real, good-for-you fast food made at home. Look to the menus of your favourite pizza joints for combo inspiration. White sauce + kale + bacon? Hot pepperoni + hot honey? Yum. Keep reading for ways to amp up the four core components of a pizza.

🍕 THE TOPPINGS: Roast or caramelize veggies. Try thin slices of sliced deli ham or back bacon, instead of pepperoni or regular bacon. Try out-of-the-box ingredients like fresh mango, cooked potato, torn basil laves, black beans or fresh corn.

🍕 THE CHEESE: Too much cheese or cheese with too high a fat content is pizza’s downfall. Try intensely flavoured varieties like Parmesan, aged gouda or asiago.

🍕 THE SAUCE: Tomato sauce is good, but there’s always room for change. Try tomato paste, pesto, Alfredo sauce or even salsa.

🍕 THE DOUGH: Dough is the foundation of the pizza, so it’s gotta be good. Don’t overwork your dough, or you’ll find it turns out a little tough. Try giving your dough a good-for-you boost with whole wheat flour or a teaspoon of flax oil.

Hit the button below for the pizza-pie goods!

THE READ: How to Get Sleep-Ready for the Fall Time Change 😴 🛌 🕰

The clock moves back one hour in the early hours of Sunday, November 5. When you have young kids, gaining an extra hour takes on new meaning. The childless days of snoozing for an extra 60 minutes are likely to be replaced by an extra hour of managing a tired child who is awake earlier than usual. But with a little planning, you can head the daylight savings dread off at the pass. Here are some expert tips for managing the fall time change.

💤 For babies and young toddlers: It’s all about the nap time stretch. Resist the urge to put them down for their naps an hour early and instead try to keep them up until their normal nap time. Same goes for bedtime.

💤 For preschoolers and school-agers: Put your child to sleep a little later the night before the time change. On the night of the time change and for the next couple of nights, adjust bedtime earlier, working towards regular bedtime.

💤 For the whole family: To help both kids and adults sleep later, make sure all of the bedrooms are very dark. Otherwise, you’ll find everyone waking too early, in response to the morning light.

For more details on how to help your child adjust to the time change, tap the button below.

THE ROUNDUP: Ways to Celebrate Halloween That Aren’t Trick-or-Treating 🎃 🍭 👻

Most of us grew up thinking of trick-or-treating as the gold standard in Halloween celebrations, but not every kid loves traipsing around the neighbourhood in costume. If you have a kiddo who would sooner watch from the window, there are so many other ways to have fun on All Hallow’s Eve. Keep reading for a few ideas, and then click through for the whole list on parentscanada.com.

🕷 A creepy-crawly baking session
Mix up a batch of chocolate cupcakes and frost with chocolate icing as the base for some yummy spiders. Add chocolate shavings or sprinkles for the effect of hairiness, plus candy eyeballs and black liquorice legs.

🕷 A scavenger hunt through the house
A scavenger hunt throughout the house is a great way to give kids a Halloween hit without leaving home. Include the backyard if you want the feeling of outdoor trick-or-treating without the crowds on the street.

🕷 A zombie makeover station
Instead of the finished costume being the main event, make the spooky transformation the headliner. Set up a station with face paint, fake scars and blood, hair chalk, etc. and set your kids free to zombify each other (and you!).

For the full roundup, hit the button below.

meredithborsgard

View more on Instagram

THE REEL DEAL:
Goldfish Crackers and Applesauce, Anyone? 🐡 🙃 🍏 

Pretty much every kid goes through a stage where they gravitate to just a handful of foods. If your toddler is in this phase right now, take heart—you’re not alone, and chances are, they won’t exist on crackers and applesauce forever. Looking for some new recipes to try? Peruse our gallery of simple family meals for inspiration.

How open are your kids to trying new foods? Weigh in by tapping your preferred answer below!

Last week’s poll results:
What do you do when your kids are up too early?

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ Get up, turn on the TV and make a vat of coffee.
🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Walk them back to their beds to see if they'll go back to sleep.
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Let them climb into bed with you.