School Lunch Pizza

My husband and I both like to cook and bake. We have some staples we make often, such as chili, fried potatoes, spaghetti, bacon-n-beans with cornbread, etc., etc. Another thing we like to make is homemade pizza, and we're always attempting to re-create the "school lunch pizza." Though he and I grew up in different states, we have the same memory of awesome homemade school lunch pizza. It was a yummy hamburger pizza, on homemade soft bread crust, with shredded cheddar cheese on top, and served in big rectangle-shaped pieces.

Just recently, I think my husband pretty much hit the nail on the head! He found a recipe for homemade pizza crust out of a cookbook (he calls it his "surgeon's manual!") that Mom gave us for a wedding present. Then he proceeded to make a "bacon cheeseburger pizza with onions" that I have to say was the BEST pizza I've ever eaten! And it came oh-so-close to that school lunchroom flavor we've been looking for. YUM!

And, while on the subject of the school lunchroom, I have fond memories of both the food AND the ladies who worked there. A few of us kids would generally go pester them just before school started, asking what was for lunch, joking around, etc. I find it interesting that I now sub in a school lunchroom, and enjoy it so much.

I almost always enjoyed the school lunches when I was growing up, and I know there are a lot of things they served then that you just don't see now. Today there are a lot of prepared things, and my husband and I laughed at one time while looking at the hometown paper, noting so many menu items "on a stick." We've come a long way, baby. Just look at this list of things from my younger days (you still see some of these things yet):

Sloppy Joe's (choice of open-faced - more filling that way!)
Vegetable soup
Cheesy ham and potatoes (one of my favorites)
Ham and beans
Chili (and always with cinnamon rolls - my FAVORITE meal!)
Hamburgers
The famous pizza
Oven-fried chicken with cornflake coating (the real thing)
Tuna salad
Fish sticks
Burritos

Something else I remember that they served pretty much all the time was HOMEMADE BREAD. I remember those thick-cut, warm slices, and the butter would melt in, oh YUMMY!

I don't think students are allowed to trade food these days. But back then, if someone didn't like something, they could give it to someone else. Many times I'd get several kids' servings of cauliflower-n-cheese or broccoli-n-cheese because they hated it and I loved it. They'd slide their tray over, and I'd happily scoop it onto my tray and gobble it down!

A lot of kids put ketchup in their ham-n-beans, and I thought that was gross for a long time - until I tried it. Not bad! It gave them a tangy, tomato-ey flavor. So that's how I ate them (at school anyway) from then on.

This is making me hungry. I'm going to have to go see what's in the kitchen.