Quicky Pizza

This blog might have left you with the impression that we eat ridiculously well every night (and most mornings, too).

I can assure you, that is not really the case. It is certainly our intention, but we're just as hard-pressed for time, energy and budget as everyone else out there.

Weeknights especially seem to go the way of meals that are as fast and simple as we can manage. Most of the flash and interesting stuff, the time-consuming stuff, happens on the weekends. It's sort of like the magic of television, only it's the internet.

But you saw it here, so it must be true, right?

Anyway, over the next few posts, I plan to intersperse a few more of our weeknight meals, and the little things we like to do to keep our meals vibrant, healthy, and tasty.

Here we have really quick, simple pizza.

The bases were in the freezer, leftover from another night of homemade pizza.

Then all you need is a brush of olive oil, a little bit of minced garlic, a slather of pizza sauce, some sliced salami, onion, and capsicum, and a grating of cheese.
In the oven for 18 minutes, and served with salad. Dinner made in less than half an hour.

More of these will follow, because I'm sure there are folks out there who will find them useful and hopefully inspiring.

King of Pizzas

I love homemade pizza SO much more than bought ones. I've already posted my dough recipe here, my not-so-secret-pizza sauce here, my slightly more successful pizza sauce here, my most inspired pizza topping here (a must for fans of chilli mussels), and a wad of vego pizzas here.

But my absolute favourite pizza has to be Chicken Camembert and Cranberry. I know that the best real pizzas are little more than the sauce and the cheese, but since Kiwis have destroyed this fine tradition and taken to slathering our pizzas with more ingredients than we'd normally put on a monthly shopping list, we may as well make the most of it.

Preheat your pizza stone in the oven at 200C, with the rack placed in the centre.
Start with one lovely fresh homemade pizza base (it really is easy, especially of you make a big batch and put them in the freezer in individual ziplock bags), and brush this with garlic-infused olive oil. Alternatively, you can rub a garlic clove over the top of the pizza base before brushing it very lightly with extra virgin olive oil.
Spread a topping of cranberry jelly on the pizza base, followed by generous slices of brie or camembert cheese and cooked chicken breast. Grind over some fresh black pepper.
Sprinkle with a mixture of grated mozarrella, cheddar and parmesan cheese.
Place the pizza on the hot pizza stone and cook in the oven at 200C for 16-18 minutes. I like to have the grill (broiler) on lightly as well, to brown up the cheese.
Unless you feel guilty for some reason, just eat this as it is. Isn't that the point of pizza?

Shock! Horror! Vego Pizzas!

Yeah, it surprised me too.

As we were dressing our Friday night pizzas, I was overwhelmed by the amount of delicious ingredients we had handy that weren't meat. I still haven't had a pizza as nice as my Mussel and Chilli Pizza, but these were pretty good. In New Zealand we have a tendency to massively overdress our pizzas, a habit that we broke after eating real pizza in New York.
So as our pizzas usually go, these ones are a bit laden, but I enjoyed them no less for it.

One pizza had the following toppings, with pizza sauce on the base (homemade, of course), and a crumbly mix of cheeses on top - mozzarella, edam and parmesan.
Chopped Fresh Tomato
Chopped Onion
Sliced Mushroom
Finely Sliced Garlic
Grated Lemon Zest
Cubed Feta Cheese The other had the following toppings:
Chopped Fresh Tomato
Pineapple Chunks
Sweet Thai Chilli Sauce
Cubed Feta Cheese
Spoonfuls of Ricotta Cheese
I didn't even notice the lack of pepperoni or salami or sausage or any of that. When it comes to pizza, less really is more.

Birthday Pizza... Sort of

Firstly, my little Statcounter tells me that yesterday I passed the "1000 views" mark on Freshly Ground. Cripes. Thanks very much for the support, everyone. It keeps me coming back, probably when I should be doing more practical things. But that's another issue which I might take up later. If you're lucky.

Moving right along, yesterday was Dessert Chef C's birthday. It was her request that we have pizza for dinner for her birthday, and I was most happy to oblige. Aunty A and Uncle I came over again, as did Liz E Bear. Uncle I brought the next step up in the beer department, this time a Trappiste Dubbel That went down very well indeed.
We've been making individual pizzas instead of big ones lately, just for a change. All was going well last night until I had the third round in the oven and I went to prep a couple more, and I found that the bases I had so carefully pre-rolled by hand had all decided to merge back together in a glutinous mass. So you learn things. A pizza takes 15 minutes to cook, but only 2 minutes to roll out the base and only a couple of minutes to dress. Next time I won't give myself a back-ache rolling out 15 bases at once, only to have them fall in love again and enjoy a little family reunion once my back is turned. Instead I'll keep the dough in balls and press each one out as it's needed.

I did pretty well at saving them from complete disaster - theoretically at least. When we were done eating, I took all the leftover toppings and sauce and spread them down the middle of the merged bases and rolled them all together. I grated parmesan over the top and baked it, and what I got out of the oven after 22mins looked absolutely divine.
Unfortunately, I had put in the last of the chicken, and because we care about our health, and no-one was still hungry, we had to put it out for the birds (and the cats, and the hedgehogs, and the worms...). Which raised a discussion about wasting food (which I deplore, as you will know), to which I argued that feeding the birds was not a waste of food at all. Certainly not an ideal use, but definitely not a waste.

Anyway, the star performers on the pizza front for the last two weeks have been a classic Chicken, Camembert and Cranberry, which I made last night for C and Liz E Bear; and my current favourite pizza of all time: Chilli Mussels. I've only ever seen seafood pizza done as if it might be your last chance to ever eat shellfish. These pizzas are laden with shrimps, mussels, fish, squid rings, surimi, and whatever else some crazed pizza chef thinks will be required for a customer to buy a seafood pizza and feel like they're getting thier money's worth. Well, the old quality versus quantity argument wins again, hands (or fins) down.

If you like seafood and you like spicy, this is the one for you. If you don't, like our birthday girl, stick to chicken and cranberry or salami and cheese. As for me, I now have a reason to make sure that there are always mussels in the fridge...

Chilli Mussel Pizza

(serves up to 6)

Place 3 plain marinated mussels per pizza you intend to make (single serve pizza, that is) in a bowl. Add in the grated zest of 1/4 lemon, 2T of Sweet Thai Chilli Sauce and 1 finely sliced clove of NZ garlic per 3 mussels, and add a generous seasoning of freshly ground black pepper. Allow to marinate, stirring occasionally, while the dough is made.

Make up 1 quantity of pizza/bread dough.

Take 1 serving of Top Secret Pizza Sauce and warm in a small pot on the stove. (Yes, you might've been LYAO when you read that post, but this stuff is fantastic. Sure, it could be better, and perhaps I could've created less of a fire hazard in the process, but it has turned out to be a brilliant base for pasta or pizza sauce. I used the last of it yesterday and I'm a bit upset about that.) Next, finely chop a ripe tomato and half an onion and add to the pot. Squirt in 1T of tomato paste and 1T of tomato sauce and heat. Allow to simmer vigourously without boiling for about 5 mins, then blitz with a stick blender or in a bench blender. Put aside.

When the dough is done, divide into six balls.

Preheat the oven to 230C, with your pizza stone on the centre rack. You want the pizza stone to be piping hot every time you start a new round of pizzas, so pop the stone back in the oven between sessions. You won't regret it.

Roll a ball of dough out flat on a floured bench, using your hands to press the dough out towards the edges. I use Semonlina flour as it doesn't dry the dough out.
Brush a drizzle of olive oil over the base, followed by about 2T of Pizza Sauce. Slice the mussels into thirds and place around the pizza, then drizzle on some of the marinade. Finely slice 1 clove of NZ garlic and sprinkle on, along with a scattering of finely sliced onion. Add a few small blocks of feta cheese, then grate over lemon zest and add a grind of pepper. Dress with a small handful of mozzarella cheese, followed by a little grating of edam cheese, and a shaving of fresh parmesan.
Pull the hot pizza stone from the oven and slide the pizza onto it. I cook 2 of this size at a time. Listen for that satisfying sizzle that tells you your base is guaranteed to go crispy. Bake for 15 mins. If your oven doesn't have a pizza setting, then flick the dial over to grill for about another 3-5 minutes until the cheese browns. Remove (carefully!) from the oven and slice, then dish.
Enjoy with a dash of good Pinot Gris. You have to admit, its not often that you can match wine with pizza, can you?

Some of the keen-eyed among you will notice that the pizza on the final picture seems to have capsicum on it. That is indeed the case. In fact, it also has pepperoni and absolutely no mussels - those things that look like they might be mussels are actually mushrooms. It seems that the mussel pizza was too good to hang around long enough for a photo to be taken, so the plain old "supremo" will have to stand in as best it can.

Top Secret Pizza Sauce

Right, here's the disclaimer:

Firstly, this recipe is so secret that even I don't know it.

Secondly, it may or may not be Pizza Sauce. It might be pasta sauce, it might be herby tomato concentrate, it might even be some form of as-yet-undiscovered alcoholic semi-beverage. I'll leave a bit in the sun for a while and see what happens.

What follows is not so much a recipe as a transpiration of events.

1. Discover that the really cheap tomatoes you got at the market on the weekend were priced thus for a reason, as you suspected at the time, and will need to be cooked up right away because you just can't see them going on a piece of toast, and you can't bear to throw them away.


2. Cobble together in your head everything you think you remember about making pizza or pasta sauce, but don't bother checking any recipe books or doing any research because its nowhere near as much fun that way.

3. Oil and season the tomatoes on an oven tray and put under a VERY HOT grill. Pull out and turn a couple of times as the skins crisp. Put out the small fire that starts when the baking paper touches said VERY HOT grill. Try to pick the ash off the cooked tomatoes.


4. Peel the skin off the tomatoes. This becomes a task for a knife and pair of tongs as, unsurprisingly, the tomatoes that have been under the VERY HOT grill are also, yes, VERY HOT.


5. Have a moment of hindsight, remembering that this was probably a job for a pot of boiling water and a bowl of cold water. Shrug, chalk it up to life experience, and justify actions by considering how much better roast tomatoes taste than boiled ones.

6. Search the house frantically looking for the sharpening steel, which was last seen on the weekend in the hands of the 16-month old kitchenhand, who obviously had some very important things to sharpen, like the couch and probably Daddy's boots. Fail to find said steel, which will later turn up in the tea-towel drawer.

7. Chop up an onion and put into a pot of RATHER HOT olive oil with some salt. Soften the onion, then try to answer the phone with a bottle of balsamic vinegar in one hand and accidentally over-vinegar the onion. Sadly, there is no way to get excess vinegar out of onion, so it becomes a feature of the dish rather than a suggestion.

8. Break up a head of garlic and place it on the bottom shelf of a VERY HOT oven, with the intention of lightly roasting them so as to squeeze the sweet stuff from the centre into the sauce. While this is cooking, continue to work on Yesterday's Blog Post, and forget all about the garlic until it has largely burnt to a hard crisp. Make a futile attempt to salvage what you can before giving up in despair.


9. Squeeze the peeled tomatoes through a sieve into the pot of onions and garlic, thus preventing the seeds and remaining skin from entering the sauce. Scrape off the bottom of the sieve with a sharp knife, and in the process spill a reasonable quantity of skin and seeds into the sauce. Make a futile attempt to salvage what you can before giving up in despair.


10. Add a large spoonful of sugar, a grind of salt and pepper, and a sprinkle of dried italian herbs. When this sprinkle turns out to be more of a shake, make a futile attempt to salvage what you can before giving up in despair. Just stir it all in and put it on the stove.

11. Allow to simmer very gently for about 4 hours. This seemed to come off without a hitch, probably because my lovely wife handled this part of the process while I was at work today.

12. Examine the final product. A bit acidy, a bit vinegary, not really pizza sauce, not pasta sauce, but maybe a good base for a stew or some other sort of tomato concentrate substitute. Feel at least a little satisfied that it wasn't a complete write-off, and don't think about how much electricity was wasted in the running of the VERY HOT grill and oven for three small tubs of uncertain nature.


13. Determine to get more sleep tonight, and to leave my next attempt at tomato sauce until the market is totally glutted with them in the late summer.

14. Decide that its not even worth putting up the photos of the debacle described above, as it would only add insult to injury. Instead, think how nice it would be to have a nice milo right about now. Act on this most wise of intuitions.

UPDATE - Do to an unprecedented response from the public (See 1 Comment below) I have rescinded my earlier decision and loaded the photos. Now you can decide for yourself whether the mixture above is edible or otherwise.

Friday Pizza

Firstly, a big cheer cheer to Morgue for the Linky.

Every week before we go shopping, we make a menu and try to stick to it. It was partly our desire to reduce the amount of red meat we were eating, but also a way of cutting down on having excess food in the fridge and freezer and never knowing what we were going to eat when I got home from work. So the menu became a habit, and it has been a Good Thing.

Of course, sometimes there are deviations, like yesterday's. We also allow a little flexibility, depending on what might happen to be on special at the supermarket. Long story short, tomorrow's plan for fish became roast pork (hanging out for that already), and tonight's soup with fresh bread turned into pizza. I felt a tiny pang of guilt when deciding to make pizza after having FnC last night, but reminded myself that home-made pizza is much healthier than the bought stuff. Honest.

There's one thing that makes this an easy Friday night feed, and that is a breadmaker. I only ever use the breadmaker to mix up dough, and I use the same recipe for bread, buns, or pizza dough. If you don't have a breadmaker, you can always do it the old-fashioned way (it's worked for hundreds of years, after all), or you can ask for one for your next flatwarming/wedding/birthday/christmas/mother's day/father's day present.

So whether you machine it or massage it, here's the basic recipe:

300g Hi-Grade Flour,
200g Semolina Flour,
2 T Surebake Yeast,
1 T Sugar,
1 t Salt,
315mls tepid water (should be warm to the touch, a bit cooler than you might wash your hands under).

Optionally, you can add in a T of dried mixed herbs or about 3 T of chopped fresh herbs, or a T of Paprika, or a 1/8 cup of raisins and a bit of freshly ground nutmeg and cinnamon. Do this right at the start, not when the mixer beeps as suggested. In my experience waiting for the beep tends to leave the extras unmixed.

Putting it together:

The next most important thing you can have for good pizza is a pizza stone. There are good ones available commercially, but you can also get a plain ceramic tile from a tile shop that should do that same thing. Make sure its not glazed, about 15mm thick, and big enough to hold the size of pizza you want to cook. (PS: the author hereby admits no responsibility for instances of exploding tiles based on this information. Blog advice should not replace the wisdom of a true professional.)

Once the dough is done, remove it from the pan and place it on a floured bench. Preheat the oven to 200c, placing one tray about 1/3 of the way up. Place your pizza stone or pizza tray in the oven to heat up too. With a long sharp knife cut the dough into 2, or 3 or 4, depending on how many you'd like and how big you'd like to cook them. We cook two big ones, but you might like to do little ones for the kids, or whatever. Then the fun bit: Rolling out the dough. With floured hands, push the dough outwards from the centre, turning with every action so that the dough spreads evenly. It should press down to about 1cm high. Toss it if you like, and add extra flour if it feels too damp or sticks to the bench.
What I then do to make life easy is rip off a piece of baking paper and place it on a large chopping board, big enough for the pizza. Place your dough on the paper and spread with a light coat of olive oil. If you like, crush a clove of garlic with a knife and rub it over the dough as well. Nom nom. We use pre-made pizza sauce, spreading about 1/2 a pottle over one pizza. As time allows, I'll investigate a home-made sauce. It can't be that hard, can it?
What you add for toppings is then up to you. We tend towards the less is more theory. We were in NY a few years ago, and it is the next best place in the world to Italy to see how pizza should be. Our favourite toppings tend to be a sprinkle of chopped salami with fresh chopped tomato, or simply ripped basil leaves, or chopped red onion.
Then the cheese, with a good grate of Parmesan and pepper.
I make one pizza at a time, otherwise the second pizza goes soggy waiting to go into the oven. Unless you've got one of those super wide ovens, I only ever cook one at a time, because if you try cooking them 2 high then one won't cook on the bottom, while the other doesn't brown on the top. And swapping them over doesn't seem to alleviate this. So pull your hot stone/tray from the oven and slide the baking paper with its pizza on and pop it straight back in for 20 mins.
When the first pizza has about 10 mins to go, start on the second one, repeating the process and juggling the pizzas across chopping boards and the hot stone.
Slice and eat. Nom nom.

Oh, and if you'd like to make this a healthier option, try putting a little salad on the side.

Things to look forward to: Roast Pork!!