Make your own! Homemade Pizza for Two

How to make pizza? During the current recession climate, everyone's watching their pennies and we are no exception. So we decided to have a homemade romantic evening together.
Ingredients for pizza base
400g Strong white flour
A packet of Fast Action yeast
250ml luke warm water to help the yeast
A couple grinds of salt
A drop of olive oil
A drop of milk

Toppings
Be creative, pick whatever takes you fancy and put them on the pizza. Enjoy your own creation! This is whatwe did.

100ml Tomato sauce (I bought a small tub of Tesco Bolognese sauce)
2 gloves of garlic, sliced (optional)
1 chilli, chopped (optional)

Mozzarella and Avocado Pizza
Mozzarella cheese
5 cherry tomatos
A handful of spinach
Half avocado, stoned and sliced
3 slices of parma hams

Spicy Veggie Pizza
Grated cheddar cheese, or of your choice
1 red chilli, sliced
Half an onion, quartered
Half a red pepper, diced
4 mushrooms, sliced
A quarter of a courgette, sliced


Step 1
Mix the flour, yeast and salt well. Gradually add the luke warm water and bring the mixture together. As it starts to bind, add a drop of oil and milk. Continue to bind until the outside is smooth.

If it's too slack, wet, add a bit more flour; if it's too dry, hard, add a bit more water.

Step 2
Cover the inside bowl and surface of dough with olive oil, to stop crust from forming when the dough starts to raise. Place the bowl in a warm part of the kitchen to help yeast action. (I put it on the shelf directly above a radiator) Leave for 2 to 3 hours to rise.

Step 3
The dough should have doubled in size. Poke the surface to let out some of the air. Transfer the dough to a floured surface and start kneading for a couple of minutes.

Cut the dough in two. Roll it flat (about 1-1.5cm thick) with a rolling pin (It doesn't really matter what shape it is, I think that's the beauty of homemade food) and place on a pizza tin, or just on a piece of foil. Leave it to rest until you sort out the toppings.

Step 4
Heating up the tomato sauce with garlic and chilli is optional. You can just spread a thin layer of tomato sauce straight on the pizza base.

Heat a pan with a teaspoon of olive oil, after one minute put in the chopped garlic and chilli. Stir it a bit and add the tomato sauce until it just starts to bubble. Leave it aside to cool.

Spread a thin layer of the sauce on the pizza base. Make sure you don't put too much, or it'll go soggy.

Step 5
Pre-heat the oven at 180 degree.
Now do your magic and place toppings on the pizza base in the style you like.

Step 6
Place the two pizzas in the oven and cook for 10-14 minutes.

Enjoy your homemade romance with a glass of good wine!

The Perfect Wine for Pizza

Where Italy comes to Australia from Premium Vineyards with a Wine for Pizza!

Totoiseshell Bay Shiraz/Barbera - South East Australia @ £5.99 per bottle

This is an intensely fruity wine, bursting with brambly Shiraz fruit, spice and herb notes. Barbera adds structure and freshness to the blend, which has soft tannins and a long clean finish.

When the sun goes down, let the wine warm you so you will settle down and sip some sunshine and pleasure with you Pizza!

How to make Brownies

Alright, I haven't posted for while. Been busy with other stuff. I nearly consigned this blog to the graveyard like many other blogs out there and then the girlfriend made 'Brownies' on a random spur of the moment. Inspired 100% by Nigella Lawson.

The brownie recipe starts in this clip about 8 minutes in...


and continues with this clip


It's well worth the hassle - they taste absolutely divine. Not one for the New Year's diet mind.

Ingredients
375g Milk Chocolate
300g Butter
225g Plain Flour
6 Large Eggs
1 tbsp Vanilla Extract
1 tsp Salt
500g Caster Sugar

Step 1
In a saucepan melt the butter and chocolate over relatively low heat stirring occasionally. Once it has all melted take off the heat.

Step 2
In a separate bowl beat the 6 eggs, vanilla, sugar and salt until well combined.

Step 3
Add the mixed ingredients from step 2 to the saucepan and mix well with the melted chocolate and butter (do not heat). Then add the flour and continue to stir until a smooth consistency.

Step 4
Pre-heat the oven to 180°C. In a suitable baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper pour the mixture. Place the baking tray in the oven and bake for 25 minutes.

Enjoy.

Fried Tomatoes with Egg

This is a very basic but delicious vegetarian recipe. Quick, sweet and often cooked as an accompanying dish with other servings.

Ingredients
4 tomatoes (each chopped into 8 segments)
4 large eggs (whisked together)
1 tsp of white granulated sugar
1/2 tsp of chicken powder
salt (to taste)
olive oil (splash of)

Step 1
Heat the olive oil in a small frying pan until hot and add the tomatoes. Heat the tomatoes for 2 minutes then sprinkle over the sugar and continue to fry for a further 3 minutes. Set aside.

Step 2
Heat another splash of olive in the frying pan and add the whisked eggs. Keep turning the eggs until they start to solidify.

Step 3
Add the tomatoes set aside earlier to the eggs. Mix well. Add salt to taste. Add chicken powder. Stir well and serve.

Deep Fried Aubergines and Noodles

This is the perfect vegetarian recipe to use with the homemade noodles below.

Ingredients
Large handful of homemade noodles
1 aubergine (eggplant) chopped into large (3cm square) chunks
water (enough to just cover the noodles.)
3 spring onions chopped
Vegetable oil for deep frying.

Seasoning:
Light soy sauce (3 tsp)
Dark soy sauce (3 tsp)
chinese vinegar (1 tsp)
sugar (1 tsp)
chicken powder (1 tsp)
salt & pepper (to taste)
chilli powder (1 tsp or less)
sesame oil (1 tsp)


Step 1
In a small pan (or deep fat fryer) heat the vegetable oil until hot. Then deep fry the aubergine chunks until lightly browned. Its best to do them in batches and setting them aside when done on some kitchen towel to soak up some of the oil.


Step 2
In a small bowl mix all the seasoning together and add the spring onions. Set aside to marinate for a short while.

Step 3
In a large pan or wok heat the water until boiling then add the noodles. Boil for 2 minutes. Then add the aubergine, boil for a further 3 minutes.


Step 4
When the noodles are cooked add in the marinade mix together and serve immediately.

Saag Paneer

Great idea Anna, am jumping on the bandwagon of posting a recipe for Chris's birthday (although a day late!)

My additon to this ever increasing list of fabulous food-tasticness is a traditional punjabi dish with spinach (or Palak) and can be made with paneer and/or potatoes.

I have no idea of quantities I'm afraid so these are rough guidelines. I just normally wing it and taste and smell as I go along!!

This will feed about 4-6 people.

What you need:

Ghee (enough to coat the bottom of the pan and the cover the onions)
1 tsp mustard seeds
2 medium size onions finally chopped
Garlic
Fresh Ginger & Fresh green chilli (can be finely chopped with a hand blender)
Salt
Cumin seeds (jeera)
Whole corriandar seeds (Dhania - these will needs to be crushed in a pestle and mortar style)
Turmaric (haldi)
half tin of tinned tomotoes (pureed)
Loads of spinach chopped. If you're buying from the supermarket in bags then you'll need about 8 bags. If buying fresh then you'll need about 5 bunches if quite big.
Paneer - some supermarkets stock this now
or potatoes
Fresh corriander
Masala

And this is how you do it....

In a large pan, heat the ghee. Once hot add the mustard seeds, cumin, ground corriander and garlic. This will release the flavour of the spices. let them sizzle for a few seconds and then add in the finely chopped onions. The onions are the important bit. The onions need to slow cook for about 20 mins or until they're a red/brown in colour (but not burnt!)

Once they turned red/brown in colour, add the finely chopped ginger, chilli and salt and turmaric (haldi) and then the pureed tomotoes. Cook the tomatoes for about 10 mins on a low heat to cook through and once it's in a paste add the spinach. Cover and cook for about half an hour or until it breaks down nicely, and then add the paneer and/or potatoes then cook for a further 20 mins or unitl the potatoes are cooked.

At the end, add about 1/2 - 1 tspn of masala to taste and some fresh chopped corriandar.

Serve with chappatti (roti) and rice.

Yum yum.