Recipe: Homemade Pizza

Friday night is, more often than not, pizza night in our house. This usually means us buying frozen or fresh pizzas from the supermarket, sometimes creating our own with a choice of toppings. However, now that my eldest had started Food Tech classes at secondary school it’s all changed.

Cooking with the boys: Homemade Pizza

After starting big school last September, he has really enjoyed his cookery lessons. So far they have made chilli-con-carne, tomato pasta, fruit salad, healthy muffins, cheese scones, scones, turkey burgers and pizza. Wanting to practice for his first ‘cookery test’ he asked if he could make pizzas for the whole family last Friday evening. I’m really liking this positive effect of big school!

We already made mini pitta bread pizzas and a gluten-free pizza using chickpea flour - check out our recipes for them, but this is the first pizza recipe that the boys have made themselves.

So, on Friday evening together we made 4 pizzas and a garlic bread with cheese. We took the recipe he had used at school and quadrupled the ingredients, except the yeast which we tripled as we only had three packets, but it worked perfectly.

Veggie & Vegan Pizzas

We actually made 4 different pizzas and a garlic bread

• Hawaiian
• Sweetcorn & Pineapple
• Vegetarian &
• Vegan
• Garlic bread with cheese

My eldest and chef for the evening loves ham and pineapple, however, his younger brother has just opted to go veggie following a trial of meat-free Mondays, plus he also loves pigs and no longer wants to eat them, so he chose sweetcorn and pineapple toppings. Inspired by the new Quorn pizza range I opted for ‘veggie chicken’ (Quorn pieces), pineapple, spinach, mushroom, sweetcorn and black olives. The fourth pizza we made vegan, omitting the cheese but adding Quorn pieces, olives, spinach, mushrooms, sweetcorn and pineapple.

Ingredients:

Pizza (makes one)

• 200g plain flour
• 25g margarine (we used dairy free)
• 1 packet yeast
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 200ml hot water
• 2 tbsp tomato puree

To make four pizzas and one garlic bread we used

• 800g flour
• 100g margarine
• 4 tsp salt
• 4 tsp sugar
• 3 pkts fast acting yeast
• 400ml hot water
• 8 tbsp tomato puree

Toppings:

• Hawaiian - Ham & pineapple
• Sweetcorn & Pineapple
• Vegetarian - Quorn pieces, sweetcorn, pineapple, spinach, mushroom and black olives with a sprinkling of chilli flakes
• Vegan - As above but with no cheese making it a vegan pizza.
• Garlic bread with cheese – 1 clove of garlic, grated cheese, margarine

Method:

1. Place the flour in a bowl and run in the margarine.
2. Add the salt, sugar and yeast
3. Gradually add the hot water, stirring carefully, but not too much as to make it wet and soggy.
4. Leave to stand for 10 minutes
5. Divide into equal size portions and roll out into pizza shapes, about 1 cm thick
6. For pizzas spread tomato puree and add grated cheese (omit this for vegan pizza)
7. Add toppings of choice plus herbs and spices.
8. For garlic bread thinly spread margarine over the base, add chopped garlic and mixed herbs plus grated cheese.
9. Place in oven for 15-20 minutes at Gas mark 7 or 200 degrees and turn around halfway through.
10. Remove from oven, cut into equal slices and serve.

And the verdict? All four pizzas plus the garlic bread were a resounding success! Yummy, tasty, fairly healthy and gone in a flash.

I’m looking forward to my boys making my dinner again next week.

Deb x

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