We live in one of those places where there are more pizza take-aways than libraries.
Or schools.
Or Doctors, dentists, petrol stations, banks, bakeries, candelstick-makers and haberdasheries combined.
We get fliers through the door advertising pizza, and kebabs, curries, chinese, Thai, burgers, fried chicken and all other forms of crap and we buy none of it. Actually I like collecting these little pamphlets of death.
Anyway we decided we wanted pizza but despite the kids chanting ‘Dominoes’ over and over (okay so we may have picked up a flier in the past and given in to the ‘Buy One Get One Half Price – even though we charge you £15 for something that costs about £1 to create) – we decided home produced would be infinitely better than something delivered by a 50cc moped.
But we cheated:
For shame! ‘Tis the work of a slothly satan….
And then we cheated some more by using:
Cooking from scratch can be difficult; creating bread from the raw ingredients – all that fresh yeast and waiting for things to rise – it’s a tiresome business. Shortcuts are required. For those of us who are time poor and cash rich – good luck, you lucky buggers. For everyone else – those who are time poor and skint – there is Tesco’s ready-made pizza dough.
Of course this being a household of multiple culinary tastes we needed to create three pizzas – one that was suitable for the vegetarian, one that was suitable for the fussy eater and one that was suitable for the ‘hoover’.
Vegetarian:
- Pesto sauce (instead of the tomato sauce)
- Spinach
- Feta cheese
- Cheddar cheese
- Mushrooms, sliced
Fussy:
- Shredded chicken
- Smoked sausage
- Chopped ham
- Mozzarella ball
- Cheddar cheese
Hoover:
- As for the ‘Fussy’ Version plus
- Sweetcorn
- Tuna
- Chorizo
- Spanish sausage
Essential pizza toppings
Method
First marshal everyone into a single room, preferably the kitchen. Then demonstrate supreme pizza-dough spinning skills
Get it off, get it off!
Then liberally apply the tomato sauce base (yes do the meat versions first to get them out of the way):
Then let the little angels apply their toppings of choice:
Bake for twenty minutes and then serve. Enjoy the silence.
Meanwhile prepare the vegetarian options. Spread the pesto sauce over the base:
Layer with mushrooms:
Wine-induced camera angles
Then the spinach and cheese. Put some basil leaves on top and drizzle with olive oil. Again bake for twenty mins:
Serve Up!
There’s nothing like a gratuitous pig-out to bring the family together! What is your favourite pizza topping? Personally mine is baked beans, sausage and tonnes of cheese. But I’m on a no fat, no carbs, no anything diet so I didn’t even participate in eating this crap – I just make it! Yes, I am a masochist.
This isn’t cheating! This is great cooking. I’m getting hungry!
Thanks for posting,
Cindy
Thanks for the like on bananas and prunes. I LOVED the wine-induced camera angles. Some days, it seems my whole life look like that. Hope you come back to read another post and hopefully get another laugh.
Following your blog now! Those wine induced camera angles can get a little fuzzy
Nothing like homemade pizza
Especially when you have myriad toppings to play with
It’s so true….
Your pizza looks a bit like a map of Sicily! I’m allergic to tomatoes, so I love the idea of using pesto instead of tomato. Yum yum!
I love the idea the pizza looks like a place!
I’m retired so I mostly have time to make the dough from scratch. And the sauce.
Couple suggestions:
Use a pizza stone, or unglazed stone tiles, whatever you can get. It will age and get better,
I put the oven shelf down to the bottom slot, slip in the pizza stone, pre-heat as hot as my oven will go. 550°F/288°C or so. For an hour.
Your photos look like a medium to thick Neopolitan-style crust = 4 minutes, rotate the pizza 180°, another 4 minutes and you’re done.
One thing to add to all of these before baking – finely chop a couple cloves of garlic and drop them into a couple ounces of really good extra virgin olive oil and microwave almost at the lowest possible setting, e.g., #2 for 4-5 minutes in my smallish Panasonic. Use a Pyrex measuring cup. Let it sit another 5 minutes or more before you assemble the goodies for baking.
Pour it over the top, spread the chopped garlic around evenly, just before baking.
Yum.
I was wondering how you could generate so many posts.
You’re right the dough was quite thick – but I couldn’t get it any thinner it just kept pinging back into a kind of flat ball. Good tip on the stone too – I really want one of those.
Thanks!
love it!!!!! You actually tired tossing it like the professionals!:) Just love it!
I know it went a bit wrong though!
Oh brilliant, I love the shapes! Circular pizzas are sooooo yesterday!
I also love baked beans on pizza; I had a cranberry and brie at an Italian restaurant the other night- it was divine!
Yes I like to think of them as ‘free-form’!
mi gusto!
Amazing! I used the same trick (different brand of pizza sauce) while babysitting grandchildren a couple of weeks ago. Certainly deals with the finnicky eater problem – no complaints when everybody made their own pizzas.
Its a great way to get the family doing something constructive
That Hoover pizza sounds like a great way to clear out the kitchen cupboards – there’s not much that’s not on there! Your pizzas look great, and as the photos show, it’s a great family activity, not just for bonding but so the little darlings learn their meals don’t magically appear while they’re playing video games in the next room 😊. (Not that I know your little darlings, but there are lots out there who need that lesson!)
You are a good person to make all this for your family when you’re unable to partake. Hope you had a great no-fat meal for dinner too (hmm, sounds like a bit of an oxymoron).
Yes its a great way to gain some control of your life – cooking but not eating! And yes those angels rate one thing above the PS3 – and that’s food!
“Wine induced camera angles” hahahaha, I hear you. Looks good, my stomach rumbled reading the post.
To be honest its wine induced everything in our kitchen…
I cheat all the time too! I love TJ pizza dough
Cutting corners is what its all about Time is not a friend in the kitchen!
Try Italian sauage and artichoke hearts…..we’ve had pizza parlors add this to their menus after we order it
That does indeed sound exotic!
Looks amazing!
1. The burnt cheese is perfect
2. I am forbidden to hand toss pizza dough in my home
3. Mmmmmmm, meat
We’ve been making pizzas on the grill outside lately. Will have to try to make a post on that
My wife would probably go for that pesto pizza. We have tons of pesto in the freezer.
I watched Heston Blumenthal make the ‘perfect pizza’ using a BBQ and a ceramic dish. He reckoned it was perfect but of course we just had to take his word for it.
So pizza’s become as pricey over there as here too I see. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why a pizza should cost $20.
Nothing like homemade though & I love pretty much everything on mine but favor what’s called a white pizza – not using tomato sauce. Tons of cheese though – gotta have tons of cheese.
But how were you able to not cheat on the no fat, no carbs diet? That had to be tough – do you have to hide in another room while everyone’s enjoying their pizza?
No I just have willpower and wine. All you need!
Sounds fun, making pizza altogether! I sometimes make beetroot and cheddar pizza – love blue cheese too. So what do YOU eat? This diet sounds pretty tough!
Just chicken, cereal and soup. And yoghurt. Oh and wine, which of course ruins the entire escapade.
I only make pizza with store bought dough! What am I, somebody who has lots of time on their hands? I think not!
There are actually a few good kinds of pre made pizza crusts that we can buy in our supermarket.
Yes we’ve tried those two but couldnt find an authentic type – you know all sort of thin with fluffy edges…
Excellent post(s). The leaflets are amazing. The Wife keeps them here to let me see what’s going on in local marketing. Dominos, 4 Star, Great Wall, Jade Palace, Khan’s Balti and so forth abound. There is the occasional one from an estate agent who has somebody interested in buying my house for twice the market price. Such is life.
I have a pizza post on Monday. Done on holidays with plenty of time to do a huge amount of work.
Best,
Conor
Yes I like the Estate Agent fliers. ‘Mrs Smith is desperate to move into your house. She has tonnes of cash and is currently living on the street’
I like the makeover
Yes its holding together well
I love the idea of using pesto, I will be trying that! We have homemade pizza on a Friday night (‘fat-Friday’) as a reward for being good and sticking to healthy food all week. We are even finding ways of making the pizzas low(er) fat and healthier!
I could really do with a fat Friday. I’d eat burgers. Or steak and chips
If I could print the page and eat it, I would do so. That looks incredible, thank you for taking the time to share it.
Eating the page is all I’m allowed to eat