Yummy Pizza

Not really sure of how this will go kiddies, first cab off the rank and all. At least it will be down the page very soon. But we have to move house over the next couple of weeks so thought I should post a tried and tasty Friday night favourite of ours. The pizza base is a hybrid of a few different recipes that has evolved after some trial and error (oh and a wicked dining holiday in Italy). The sauce is based on a Jamie Oliver recipe that I saw on one of his TV shows once.....
The base can be made with gluten free flour.

Pizza Dough
1000g of plain flour
550mls tepid water
1 sachet of yeast
4 tbs olive oil
Pinch of salt
Optional 1tbs sugar (castor)
* this makes a huge amount of dough but it freezes well and can be used for calzone too. Another recipe for that will follow (sometime soon)

Process
Sift flour, salt and sugar if used onto a clean bench surface.
Make well in the middle and add a small amount of H2O, yeast and olive oil
Mix slowly with fork then start bringing in flour from the sides of well , keep adding water slowly
When it becomes too hard to mix with fork use your hands.
You may not need to use all the water
Kneed dough for about 5-6 minutes until it is elasticy
Place in large bowl, cover with damp cloth and place in warm place for about 45 minutes so it can rise to about double its size.


When you are ready to build your pizza you can flatten the base any way you like, tossing it in the air, stretching it into shape. But I am not a big stickler for shape and like my pizza base pretty thin so I use a rolling pin and it ends up in all kinds of shapes.

Pizza (tommy) sauce
1 large onion (2 small)
3 cloves of garlic
Fresh basil
2 cans of whole peeled tomatoes
Salt and pepper to taste

Process
Roughly chop onion and garlic
Sweat onion in pan, then add garlic, basil and tomatoes
Roughly mash tomatoes and let simmer for about 10 minutes
Push mixture through sieve so there is a fragrant tomato sauce left (throw chunks away)

Put this sauce back into pan and simmer (maybe another 10 minutes) until reduced to a nice thick sauce.

Topping
Whatever you like!!
A great veggie pizza is sauteed zucchini in garlic, mushrooms, roasted capsicum, onion, olives and mozzarella, Artichoke is always another tasty topping too.

Our fav (this month) is topping the base with tommy sauce and mozzarella, putting it in a really hot oven (250° C) as is. When it is beautiful and golden take it out of the oven, it is topped with prosciutto and rocket (dressed with fresh lemon juice, olive oil and salt and pepper).
Bellissimo!