Cook along with Mary P – Pizza

One of my favourite things to make is pizza.. I use this all rounder as a perfect opportunity to pack in the nutrition and as you’ll see I put a couple of unexpected things in but this adds an incredible taste..

I start by showing you my base recipe.. if you don’t have time to make the base or just don’t want to, ready made bases are cheap, so skip to the extra veggie topping recipe.

Pizza Base

500g flour (should be strong but plain works fine)
7g sachet yeast
pinch salt

put these ingredients in a bowl then in a jug add -

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon honey
then pour in tepid water to 300ml mark

pour the water mixture half at a time onto the flour and fold in with either hands or wooden spoon, when it’s almost mixed tip onto a well floured surface and get kneading!
you should knead it for about 10mins, sometimes I do this if I want to take out anger (lol!) but sometimes I admit I don’t do it at all.. does it make much difference? for pizza base.. no!

I’ve made enough here for four bases, so break into four and wrap three in cling film and freeze! Next time you want pizza take it out in the morning and you save yourself a job..

put to one side.

Before I show you the sauce recipe I do something unusual..

Extra Veggie Topping (optional)

1/2 a small leek CHOPPED SMALL
a handful of curly kale or savoy cabbage CHOPPED

melt a small knob of butter in a medium saucepan and sweat the leek/cabbage until soft, then put to one side.

use the same saucepan to make the sauce, don’t rinse it out.

Pizza Sauce

1 onion finely chopped
1 tablespoon flour
a tin of chopped tomatoes
4 sun dried tomatoes
1 crushed clove garlic
squeeze of tomato puree
1 teaspoon dried oregano
pinch pepper

soften onion in saucepan (the butter from sweating the leeks should suffice for this if not add a splash of olive oil)
when onions are soft add flour and mix until onions are coated. add chopped tomatoes and the rest of the ingredients above, mix well so flour makes the sauce thick, turn the heat down low and leave to heat gently, stir occasionally. (if you like sauce extra smooth blitz in food processor)

next..

the other toppings I use apart from the leek/cabbage are – mushrooms, fresh sweet basil and cheese so..

grate some cheese (whatever your preference)
chop some mushrooms into very thin slices
rip leaves of sweet basil off the stems

Assembly!

flour your surface well, roll out your pizza base until it’s around a centimetre thick, this takes patience as it will spring back, but it will come.

spread a quarter of the pizza sauce on the base, the rest can be separated into three pots and frozen for next time!

now scatter your leek/cabbage mix over the base.

now lay your mushrooms on top

then scatter the basil leaves, whole or ripped.

sprinkle some pepper over the mushrooms

cover with cheese and finished with a sprinkle of dried oregano.

cook on 220c for 10-12 mins and enjoy!

The one thing I would say about this recipe is if you use my base recipe it will be hard to get it crispy in the centre, so may need to be eaten with cutlery (:0O) if anyone has any tips for me on making it more crispy this would be appreciated! although it’s so yummy I don’t care

NOTE FOR MEAT EATERS!

As usual you can either replace something for bacon or chicken or pepperoni or ham etc etc.. or just add it on top of the mushrooms!

I usually serve this with my home-made chips-

chip potatoes (skins on) sprinkle with olive oil spread on baking tray and bake in 200c oven for 20mins.

any comments would be welcomed

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