Pizza time!

Over the last year or so I have been trying to broaden my culinary horizons and starting to cook new dishes and foods, outside of my usual comfort zone. Bread was number one, which I am now pretty good at the basics but feel its time to step up a gear and over the weekend ordered the River Cottage Bread handbook..will blog any successes! !

So, as dough is becoming more friend, than foe, Saturday was home made Pizza day! I followed Jamie Oliver's recipe from his Jamie at Home series but decided the quantity was a bit big for us so I halved it, this still gave us four good sized bases, 2 which have gone into the freezer once the proving stage was done, (am thinking Calzone for them!) leaving two for our dinner!

Jamie makes it look very easy on tv, in particular the whole sieving flour onto the work surface, pouring warm liquid into the centre and then use a fork to mix. Didn't quite go to plan and involved grabbing a clean tea towel frantically to mop up the liquid that was trying to make its bid for freedom but I got there in the end! Our work surfaces are a little off balance so that might have been partially to blame, the other being my cack-handedness!!

Sieved flour, Pre-well:

Once I got past the above stage it went really smoothly, within minutes a lovely smooth, soft dough appeared and then into a floured bowl next to the storage heaters, for a little rest, with the odd sneaky peek! Luckily it rose beautifully!

Off to snooze:
Yippee its risen!



Jamie recommends for cooking the hottest your oven can go, now being in rented property and the element only being replaced a short while back, I was a bit concerned and only went as far as 230o on the dial, though I have a fan oven so was still pretty hot! I am yet to get a pizza stone so used a holey bottomed chip tray and a cookie sheet, which worked pretty well and produced a lovely, crispy but still soft base.

Topping the pizzas was great fun, though trying to manoeuvre assembled pizza onto hot tray was a little fiddly, next time I think I will roll pizza out onto baking parchment and use that to transfer onto the tray!

I had intended to make Jamie's quickest ever tomato sauce for the base, though before going out shopping had mis-read recipe slightly but it did work well, with a bit of jiggling:

1 carton (370g) of chopped tomatoes with basil and oregano
1 clove garlic
2t tbsp olive oil

Gently heat the olive oil in a pan, add the garlic and cook for about 2 minutes but don't let it burn, add the tomatoes and warm through, drain through a sieve, discarding any mush left behind, return to pan and simmer to reduce a little.

I bought a selection of goodies for topping: Mozzarella, Milano salami, Pepperoni, Sweetcorn, Mature farm cheddar, grated and Danish extra creamy blue cheese cut into small chunks - this was leftover from other dishes, would use something stronger next time, personally I adore gorganzola! I had all the above except the salami but did sprinkle over dried chili flakes and a swirl of garlic & chili olive oil! They took about 10 minutes to cook and were delicious.

This is the other half's pizza:

My pizza!

All in all, a good fun and messy afternoon! Though I highly recommend a metal scourer for cleaning all the flour off the counters afterwards!

If you have any of the toppings leftover, they make a great breakfast roll the next morning!