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Homemade Pizza

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 00:36:06 -0500

I was making homemade pizza yesterday, and thought I would share the recipe with you. It's such an easy one and you'll get your 5+ a day in veges in one sitting!

To start with, sometimes I'm lazy, and sometimes I'm not. When I'm not feeling lazy I make my own shortcrust pastry for the base. When I am, I buy a packet of puff pastry and just roll it out. If you wanted you could even make your own pizza base (but I reckon pastry tastes so much better).

So: Short Crust Pastry

You will need:

200gms butter
400gms flour
pinch of salt
just under 100mls of water

The key is to have the bowl and butter really cold and to follow the ingredients exactly. Put your butter, flour and salt in a food processor. Process for 15-20 seconds until you have a soft fine breadcrumb texture. This can be done with your hands, but it tends to warm the pastry and melt the butter, changing the texture of the finished pastry. Pour into your cold bowl. Make a well in the middle and add 2/3 of the water. Use your hands to 'twist' the flour, like you're trying to mop up the butter and flour together. When combined, add remainder of your water and twist in.

Lightly flour your board, and transfer the dough. Push the pastry together and gently knead the pastry to form a ball. Don't overhandle. Once you have a soft smooth texture, put the pastry back into your cold bowl. Cover with cling film and put in the fridge to relax for 20 or so minutes.

To roll the pastry: flour board and rolling pin. The key is not to overwork the pastry. Press down on the pastry to flatten, turn 90 degrees and flatten again. Roll the pastry a little, and when the edges start to crack, turn the pastry 90 degrees, push the edges back together, and roll again. Continue until you have the pastry about 2-3mm thick. It's now ready to use. I find this recipe makes enough dough for 2 big pizzas.

Pizza Prep

To make sure everything cooks evenly, I roast the vegetables and cook the meat before putting it on the pizza base. Vegetables you can use anything your heart desires, I generally use the following and dice them all to bite-sized pieces:

3-4 potatoes
1 large kumara (sweet potato)
1/4 crown pumpkin
2 carrots
1 large brown onion
handful of mushrooms, quartered
1-2 bell peppers
1 fresh chilli, seeds removed.

I usually leave the mushrooms, peppers and chilli out until the last half hour of cooking, otherwise they overcook and shrivel to nothing. To prep the chilli, slice in half and remove the seeds, then roast. Once it's done I chop into small pieces and sprinkle over the pizza. The chilli is entirely optional - I think I got a little carried away yesterday - the boys loved it, my mouth burned all afternoon!

When cooking the veges, sprinkle olive oil in the bottom of your roasting dish, add the veges, sprinkle with mixed herbs, salt and pepper, then drizzle with a little more olive oil. Toss around a little in the pan and bake for a couple of hours at 160 degrees celcius. Don't worry about making leftovers, mix them with some salad leaves and feta cheese for a quick salad tomorrow!

The meat on your pizza can basically be anything as well. Yesterday I used homemade pork and apple sausages, cooked and sliced, as well as some pancetta bacon. But you can also use ham, salami, beef, chicken etc etc etc.

Making the pizza

Roll out your pastry or dough and line the bottom of your pizza dish. I'm lucky enough to have a large pyrex glass one - highly recommend getting one if you can because it cooks the pizza very evenly and holds the heat in while you're cutting up the pizza as well (but check it will fit in your oven first - they are quite big). Press the dough in around the edges and trim off your extra pastry.

Spread your pizza base with a sauce. If I have it, I like to use cream cheese because it goes very well with the vegetables, but yesterday I used good old tomato sauce. You could also use BBQ sauce or pizza sauce. Just make sure it's something that doesn't go 'weird' when you cook it.

Spoon over your vegetables. Make sure they are well mixed, I stack mine about 3-4cm high. Add your meat, distributing it evenly over the pizza, the sprinkle with cheese. I use an edam cheese, but also sprinkle with romano or parmesan (finely grated) to boost the cheese flavour without drowning the pizza in it. Season the pizza with salt and pepper, and bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes at 180 degrees. When the pastry turns a nice golden brown, your pizza is ready to be cut and served. Enjoy!

Remember your extra pastry? If you're lazy and have used puff pastry, cut it into finger stripes and place on a tray sprayed with oil. Put it in the oven with your pizza and in about 10 minutes you will have a quick easy snack to enjoy while waiting for the pizza to cook. You can also sprinkle these with cheese.

So here is the finished result - it went down a treat with all:

Seafood Dinner

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 22:16:00 -0500

Yesterday at the supermarket, I managed to get my hands on some whole squid for a really good price, as well as a whole baby salmon and fresh prawns. This called for seafood dinner.

Now I have to admit, I am a pretty good cook, but I had never prepared a whole squid before. But how hard could it be really? I had decided to try a recipe from a close friend - John De Giuseppe who is a wonderful italian cook. So I made his stuffed squid, and with it I was making garlic butter prawns, baby lemon dill salmon steaks and a green salad with romano cheese and a balsamic vinaigrette.

The first step was to remove the legs and head, then remove the insides from the body. 'Just pull the head out and scoop the rest away' was my advice from a friend 'and make sure you remove the cartilage that runs down the inside' Well that sounded easy enough, and I'm game to try anything once. So I started pulling on the head/legs. Ewwww! Finger in squid eyeball was so gross. But not anywhere as gross as once I'd got the head off. My friend didn't mention the gooy snotty yellow pus like stuff that was inside there!! It was enough to put me off preparing my own squid ever again. It was almost enough to put me off my dinner too. That was NASTY. And I had 2 of them to do.

I carried on and got them both done while mum was making the stuffing for them. 'Mum look at this - it's so gross' She promptly turned her back to me and refused to look. Normally I would have picked up whatever it was and shown it to her anyway, but this squid guts was so bad that I wasn't touching it more that I needed to. I thought you would enjoy this photo - it's the 'leftovers' from the squid. Yummy.

The first step of stuffing the squid was to sew together the small end so your stuffing didn't fall out. As my mum is quite excellent at sewing (see her website here and you'll understand) I got her to do this part while I took photos. Once the bottom was sewn together, we proceeded to stuff the squid.

The stuffing was a simple one - for the 2 squid casings I had I used 6 slices of toast, 1 medium onion (diced), 1 teaspoon of dill, half a teaspoon of black pepper, salt to taste, 2 tablesppons of melted butter and a teaspoon of paprika. Mix it all together. It should be pasty, if too dry, add some olive oil until you get the right consistancy.

The final step was the sew together the other end.

Once you've finished sewing the squid, rub the finished cases with olive oil and bake in the oven at 150 degrees for 30 minutes. It was at this part of the recipe that my friend also told me that you can eat the head and legs of the squid - just rub them in olive oil and bake at the same time. I couldn't handle the eyes, so I cut the head off and just did the legs.

Now that the squid was in the oven, I could prepare the salmon. Because it was a baby salmon, I simply cut it into baby steaks, removed the fins, seasoned with lemon and dill, salt and pepper and fried in a pan for 4-5 minutes on each side in a little olive oil. Make sure you rest the salmon when it's cooked, and I think it's better to eat just warmed instead of piping hot, so we left it to cool while the squid was cooking.

Next up the the prawns. I had bought whole prawns (so heads, eyes and all), which we de-headed, pealed and removed the 'poo string'. I put them aside until everthing else was ready as they only take a minute to cook.

Finally I made the salad. With all this seafood, it's best to keep the salad simple but tasty. This is a Gordon Ramsey recipe - in the bottom of your salad bowl, whisk together 1 tablespoon of vinegar (I used balsamic) and 2 tablespoons of olive oil (extra virgin is best) with salt and pepper to taste. Cross your salad servers in the bowl, and put your lettuce on top. This prevents the lettuce from wilting in the dressing while you're getting everything else ready. Top the lettuce with shaved romano cheese. If you don't have romano you can use parmesan which has a milder taste. Your salad is done. Just before eating, remove your salad servers and toss the lettuce through the dressing until well coated and serve immediately.

By now our squid was done, so I removed it from the oven and rested for a minute before slicing. Slice it the same way as you would for squid rings. The legs were chopped into pieces ready to be mixed with the salad.

Finally, cook the prawns. These were being done in a butter garlic sauce - for 20 prawns, melt 4 tablespoons of butter. Once melted, add 4 teaspoons crushed garlic, and fry until the garlic starts to turn brown. Add the prawns and cook until they turn pink - they only take about a minute. Serve immediately - these are best hot.

It sure was a lot of work, and the squid prep was gross, but oh so worth the effort in the end. Enjoy with a cold crisp white wine! Nom nom nom nom nom.

The smell of freshly baked bread

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 22:02:40 -0500

There really isn't anything like the smell of fresh bread that's just come out of the breadmaker. Today I thought I would share a bread recipe that I used to use when living at home, and still use today. It's also very easy to adapt to different flavours.

The Basic Bread

Into your breadmaker add:

2.5 cups of high grade flour (you can use standard flour if you don't have high grade, it just makes a better loaf with high grade)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon breadmaker yeast (on colder days I use a bit more, and also use more depending on the brand of yeast - my current batch needs about 5 teaspoons to make the bread rise)
1/4 cup of milk and 3/4 cup of water OR 1 tablespoon of milk powder and 1 cup of water

The Variations

Linseed and Poppy Seed Bread - add 1 tablespoon each of whole linseed (flaxseed) and poppy seeds
Bacon and Cheese Bread - add 1 tablespoon of dried bacon bits OR 1/4 cup cooked fresh bacon and 1/4 cup grated cheese. Just before the baking process starts, sprinkle over a tablespoon of grated parmesan or romano cheese
Pumpkin and Sunflower Seed Bread - add 1 tablespoon each of pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds.
Walnut Bread - add two tablespoons of chopped walnuts
Wholemeal Bread - substitute 1 cup of white flour for 1 cup of wholemeal flour
Country Grain Bread - add 1 tablespoon each of linseed, poppy seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and sesame seeds.

The variations are only limited to your imagination. Often I will just open the cupboard and put in a bunch of stuff that looks good! This loaf is linseed and poppy with a sprinkle of romano on top.

Summer BBQ

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 22:00:25 -0500

It's been another hot North Canterbury day, perfect for an evening BBQ with family, and we were in for a treat.

I've been looking after my Uncle's pup for a week while he's been up north, and he popped in tonight to pick him up, so we thought we'd make a night of it and fire up the BBQ. My uncle bought down a bunch of meat that he had in the fridge. He'd been fishing and is quite a keen hunter, so bought us some fresh fish, wild pig sausages, and some Tuatua.

Before today, I had never hear of Tuatua, let alone eat it. It turns out that it is only available from the northern half of the North Island, so it's not normally available in the central South Island. It's a shellfish that tasted great! Here is some more info about it.

Mum and I were in charge of salads, but we were finding it a little difficult because we had no lettuce, which makes salad making a challenge. So it was time to get the creative juices going. This started with a look in the pantry and the fridge. We ended up with 3 salads, so did pretty well I think.

Salad #1: New Potato, Egg and Bacon

We had some left over new potatoes from the night before which we chopped and added boiled turkey eggs and homemade bacon to, then stirred in some mayo. Easy :)

Salad #2: Salmon and Pasta

We found a part packet of macaroni elbows which we cooked, cooled and added a can of salmon, sliced gerkins, a tomato, some cocktail onions and stir in some mayo.

Salad #3: Bean and Corn

I found a can of mixed beans in the cupboard, along with some baby corn. Rinse and toss together, crumble in some feta cheese and add some radish sprouts. Drizzle with balsamic dressing (1 part balsamic vinegar, 2 parts oil - shake well to combine then use)

All of this was quick to put together, the hardest part was waiting for the eggs to boil.

Day 2

Sun, 02 Jan 2011 21:38:47 -0500

Ok - I'll come up with a better title tomorrow. But for me to post day 2 is a small celebration, as it means that I haven't busted my goal set yesterday.

I've been spending time making food that I either haven't done for a while, like breadmaking, or haven't done before, like my proscuitto ham and pancetta bacon.

The worst thing about making your own bread is the smell when it comes out. Not because it's a bad smell, but because it's so tempting to just cut into and eat the whole loaf. I've been using an old recipe, the one that Mum used to use with her breadmaker. I was always the one who had to put the bread on at home, so it's not surprising that after 10 years I can still remember the recipe off by heart. I've made a couple of adjustments to it, like adding linseed and poppy seeds to the mix, which not only makes it taste great, it means that you have healthy grainy bread which is good for all.

Proscuitto and pancetta have been exciting to make, being the first time I've done it. Last October I went on a 'Pig in a Day' course, which not only taught me how to make these, but also sausages, salami, wet cure bacon and Christmas ham. It was very well worth the $150 that the course cost, and I can highly recommend it. I got to put it all into use a lot sooner than I was expecting, due to getting my hands on a pig that was ready for slaughter before Xmas. Which also really helped with Christmas dinner as well. The image above is a pancetta drying in my fridge, it will be ready in about 2 weeks.

The proscuitto is currently hanging in my laundry, after being cured in about 20kg of salt for the past 2.5 weeks. It's looking and smelling really good, but won't be ready for at least 6 months. Makes you understand why it is so expensive in the supermarkets when you realise it takes probably 12 months to make. We can start cutting into it at 6 months because we're not going to be using it fast enough, and it should be fully ready by the time we get into the middle. 6 months is actually pretty good timing, as thats about when our next pig will be ready for slaughter and I can start the process all over again.

I also tried turkey eggs for the first time yesterday. They taste very similar to hens' eggs, but larger. We have 6 turkeys - 3 hens, 2 toms and a 6ish week old chick which (sorry in advance) will be next years Christmas dinner. Some people get a bit weird when I say this, but the rule with our lifestyle block is: with the exception of the cat, tropical fish and the dog we will get, everything on the farm is for breeding or eating (or in the turkeys, ducks and hens case, producing eggs). So I'm very pleased that at least one of our turkey hens is earning her keep. Come on you other 2, start laying eggs for me.

Well that's blog post number 2 finished. Tomorrow I'm going to do some work in the vege garden if the weather lets me so will let you know how it goes :)