Pizza and movie night

For years now we have had a pizza and movie night every Friday night (unless we are out). When it started we made them from scratch, then as we got busier we often bought them but we have returned to the healthier home made ones in the last year or so.

The Base


We try to make the base from scratch, using the bread machine dough setting, but if we don't get time we keep a ready supply of greek pitta breads frozen which makes great instant bases.


Bread machine pizza Dough recipe for 4 (with some leftovers)
300ml water
1.5 Tb extra virgin olive oil
1.5 tspn salt
550g bakers flour
2.5 tspn dried yeast


We put this in the bread machine on dough setting for 1.5 hours.


The First Layer


We usually spread all pizzas with tomato paste (a cheaper one that is not triple concentrated)
The aldi organic one in small tins is good - and we use exactly a tin each week)
Sometimes we will do one of the pizzas with basil pesto or olive tapanade for a change.
Recently eva has convinced us to put a little bbq sauce in with the tomato paste on her hawaiian!


The Toppings
Almost every week we make:
Potato, rosemary and spanish onion
Hawaiian made with "fakin" our name for vegetarian bacon and fresh pineapple -Eva's staple pizza


Other weeks we commonly make:
Tomato and boconcinci
Eggplant and onion,
Zucchini and red capsicum
Sweet potato
Goats cheese, caramelised onion and sage (based on a suggestion in "Veg In" by Flip Shelton - one of our favourite books at the moment)
We add olives (kalamata or parmesan stuffed green ones), sliced red onion or semidried tomatoes to any of the vegetable ones that look like they need more.




The Cheese


Most of the time we use cherry bocconcini for our cheese. A tub will spread across our four pizzas.
We also grate whatever is on hand - cheddar, mozarella or parmesan or any combination. We try not to use too much chees cheese - but it varies according to which family member does it!


The Finishing Touches
I love basil or rocket tossed in balsamic vinegar and sometimes a little olive oil tossed over the pizzas (not the hawaiian - but any other. The rest of the family are less enthusiastic about this so sometimes i put this in a bowl on the side to scatter on pieces as i eat them.




This weeks pizzas on homemade bases were:
1. Thin sliced nicola potato, snipped homegrown rosemary, sliced spanish onion on tomato paste with mixed grated cheeses.

2. Sliced tomato, semi-dried tomaotes, the last few kalamata olives on tomato paste with mixed grated cheese and some snipped homegrown basil on after cooking.

3. Caramelised onions, goats cheese crumbled, thin slices of homegrown sage leaves on a tomato paste base.

 4. Fresh pineapple, "fakin" vegetarian bacon, tomato paste mixed with a little BBQ sauce and grated mixed cheeses.

Then we lie back on the couches in the lounge and chill-out after a busy week! Left-overs make a great meal on the run somewhere on the weekend. 

BTW This Weeks Movie was "Star Wars" - Ian's Choice.

Nicola

Around the World in 18 Fridays: Week 1- France

Each Thursday I cook dinner, so on Fridays I’ll aim to bring you a blog post about what I cooked. So far I’ve chosen an international theme, so each post will be from a different place in the world. Bon voyage! –Mia

Bonjour!

Today I'm cooking something French! Can you guess what?

Because we’re part of a fruit co-op, we always seem to have too much of one thing and not enough of something else.

This week’s excess was eggplant, zucchini and capsicum.

Ratatouille really seemed the perfect dish!

I loosely based mine on one on Taste.com.au and the one in Charmaine Solomon’s Complete Vegetarian Cookbook (a good book, I might add!).

But only some ideas for ingredients- I ignored the quantities and added/removed a couple of things.

And yes, it may be the ugliest coloured dish on earth, but trust me- the taste makes up for it!

Ratatouille

Serves 4, plus leftovers

3 Eggplants, cubed

4 Zucchinis, cubed

2 Tbsp Olive Oil

3 Brown Onions, diced

3 Cloves of Garlic, crushed

2-3 Capsicums, de-seeded and cut into strips

2 Cans of Tomato

1 tsp Ground Coriander

A couple of sprigs of Basil, finely sliced

Salt and Pepper, to taste

Place zucchini and eggplant in a colander and sprinkle with salt. Toss, so all of the cubes are in contact with the salt. Set aside for an hour. After the hour and passed, rinse and pat dry.

Heat oil, in a large, heavy based saucepan. Add onion and garlic and cook until soft, but not brown.  Add eggplant, zucchini and capsicum, and cook over low heat for ½ an hour.

Add tinned tomatoes, coriander, basil, salt and pepper and cook for a further 30-40 minutes until the vegetables are soft and very tender.

Serve with pasta, or on it’s own for a light meal. Bon Appetit!

Mia

Iced Tea

I was at a café the other day, craving iced tea. But it’s like $4.00 dollars for a really small bottle so I had something else instead.

And in my iced tea craving that followed, it occurred to me that iced tea is pretty much just tea and sugar, plus maybe a bit of flavouring.

So how the heck can shops get away with charging $4.00!!!!!!!!!

I’d made iced tea before, but only ever  lemon, but suddenly I realized how easy it would be to make it peach flavoured! (or any other flavor for that matter)!

And it was really yummy! And just like the stuff you get at the shops! Plus it probably cost less than a dollar to make the whole jug!

I used this fruity T2 tea (Strawberries and Cream), which gave it a lighter, sweeter taste, but you could use any black, green or herbal tea of your choosing.

 Basic Iced Tea Recipe

1 Tbsp Loose leaf tea or 1 tea bag of your choosing

1 and a ½ Tbsp Sugar

1 litre of boiling water

Put the teabags in a large jug (if using loose leaf be sure to put it in an infuser). Pour over the water and allow to infuse for five minutes, or until your tea is stronger than you wuld drink hot. Stir in the sugar until dissolved, and allow to cool before putting it in the fridge to cool completely. 

Variations:

-       Peach flavor

Add 2 peeled, diced peaches to the jug with the teabags, before adding the water. Either remove it before serving or serve it in the tea.

-       Lemon Flavour

Add a tablespoon of lemon juice (or to taste) to the tea when you add the water. You may choose to add more sugar for a sweeter tea.

Mia 

Eva's Pasta

Happy New Year!
I have made a new years resolution to Blog at least once a week but haven't yet remembered to photograph anything while cooking it this week!! But I did photograph for my youngest daughter as she cooked her first family dinner (she will be cooking Tuesday Night Dinners for us now.)Her first effort was pasta made from scratch, with a roast pumpkin sauce, green salad and a bagette.

Her ingredients - bread flour, salt, extra virgin olive oil & 3 eggs.

Forming the pasta dough

rolling the pasta dough into thin strips (and adding some fresh corriander)

"shredding" the pasta strips into noodles.

Making the roast Pumpkin sauce (mashed roast pumpkin, cream, salt and pepper)

Presentation - (from the 9yr old Masterchef watcher)

As it was served up. delicious!

We look forward to her future Tuesday Dinners! 

Nicola

Gingerbread Houses

My girls and two of their friends spent a morning at our place decorating gingerbread houses last week. The Gingerbread was bought as a kit from Ikea. The icing was royal icing which we made ourselves. The recipe with plenty of icing for four houses is given below.

Royal Icing

8 egg whites

2 tspns lemon juice

2kg Icing Sugar

Work in Progress

Place egg whites and juice in mix master on low speed and gradually add icing sugar until all combined and glossy.

We piped using zip lock bags with the corners snipped and some plastic piping squeeze bottles from a biscuit kit.

The girls shopped for their own lollies and chose boiled lollies, red liquorice, chocolate freckles, smarties, mint leaves and jubes. We also had little shiny balls (cachous).

These are the finished products!

Nicola

Cheese-making

Cheese is my new cooking thing!


For my birthday I was given a soft cheese making kit and course. The course was fabulous. It was run by Suzanne at "The Cheesemaking workshop" in Northbridge, Sydney. I helped to make feta, camembert, haloumi, ricotta, cream cheese, marscapone and yoghurt in one day. I have just started to make my own.
My first effort was ricotta which was delicious and sweet and we have enjoyed as a snack at home.
Next I tried feta and it has turned out beautifully.

"Wobbling " the curds to help release the whey whilst making the Feta.

I have since cubed it and marinated it in oil, rosemary, garlic, chilli flakes and peppercorns in pretty ikea jars as christmas gifts. 

The Oil blend for the Marinated Feta - 50/50 Extra Virgin Olive Oil for flavour and Sunflower Oil so it doesn't set in the fridge and a dash of lemon juice.

The ingredients in the marinade

The Feta in it's Brine bath.

The finished Christmas Gifts!

I have also made mascapone which was served with christmas dinner - half flavoured with lemon and parsley under salmon canapes and the other half with vanilla paste and icing sugar with dessert.


My next plan is camembert. I am nursing a little one that I made during the course. It is now covered in fluffy white mould and just today has come out of the cheese cave temperature 12 degrees and is now wrapped in foil in the fridge for 4-6 weeks. On friday I hope to make a batch of camemberts (4-5 of them) which should be ready by the end of february.


Must go now as I need to put my Greek Yoghurt on for the morning.


I hope to keep posting how the Cheesemaking progresses.


Nicola

Peach, Pear and Tomato Relish

For a few weeks I'd been planning on making a chutney or jam to use up all the stonefruit we keep getting in our fruit co-op. I stumbled across THIS recipe in my search, which struck me as sounding incredibly delicious (as well as being a great gift idea). It was however, slightly unrealistic sounding in terms of school term- which is why on my very first day of holidays I set about making it. 

All ready for giving away!
(sadly,  half of it had already been given away
when I though to take this photo) 

It was a downright scary recipe- especially the reccomendation to allow a whole day for it, so I had some niggling doubts about either not finishing it or it turning out disgusting after so much work! Still, I needn't have fear- it was delicious! The blanching and cutting was labour intensive and took a long while, but once it was on the stove it just needed occasionally stirring and a little bit of adjustment in terms of vinegar, so there was plenty of opportunity for going about whatever else needed doing. 

I chose not to use the chilli- I'm sure it would have been delicious, but some of the people I gave it to aren't big on heat- and used 1 1/2 cups of vinegar, which worked fine I thought. I chose to use only 2 pots, because they were very large. The bigger one (which was also on a larger burner) took about an hour and a half less, but this allowed time for bottling it while the other finished off.

Peach, Pear and Tomato Relish (AKA Gramma Miller's Tomato Relish)

From: http://kitchen-paradeveggieventure.blogspot.com/ 2007/08/gramma-millersripe-tomato-relish-aka.html

Time: allow a whole day, about 2 hours for prep work, then several hours stove-time with frequent attention

Makes about 10 pints (4.7L)

6 peaches
30 medium ripe tomatoes
6 medium yellow onions
3 green peppers
2 jalapeno peppers (this isn't traditional, I'm adding it this year for the first time)
6 pears, peeled and diced (because pears aren't yet in season, I use 3 15-ounces cans of pears in light syrup, including the syrup, the fruit diced small)
4 cups sugar
1 - 2 cups (or more) white vinegar
2 tablespoons table salt
2 tablespoons pickling spices


Fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil for blanching the peaches and tomatoes. While the water comes to a boil, in batches chop the onion, green pepper and jalapeno in a food processor. Transfer to a large bowl Add the pears, sugar, vinegar (see notes below about vinegar quantity) and salt.


Four or five at a time, drop the peaches into the water and blanch for 1 minute til skin splits, transfer to colander to drain and cool. Let water return to a boil before adding more.


Cut an X in the skin of the blossom end of each tomato, then four or five at at time, drop into boiling water. Cover and blanch for 1 - 2 minutes til skin splits, transfer to a colander to drain and cool.


One by one, peel and then chop the peaches and tomatoes, discarding the peels and adding the pieces (juice and seeds and all) to the bowl and stir to combine. If there is more tomato than the bowl can hold, keep it separate until the relish is on the stove, making sure you allow it space in the pots.


Fill two-three large pots (depending on the pot size) about 2/3 full. Wrap the pickling spices in two or three squares of cheesecloth. (You'll need as many as you have pots for cooking. You can also staple the spices into coffee filters).


Bring the pots to a boil and let simmer until liquid cooks off, adding any leftover tomato as soon as you can. Especially at the beginning and near the end, stir ever 15 minutes to monitor the temperature. 


A couple of hours in, TASTE the mixture. It needs to have a strong vinegar component, if it doesn't, add vinegar. (My Mom and I made a very unsuccessful batch one year, we realized too late it was because we didn't use enough vinegar.) It's done with the liquid is cooked off and the whole mixture has turned a beautiful shade of brown. (Although the recipe says it takes 2-5 hours, my smaller pot took almost seven. I think the amount of liquid and the size of the pot/burner were to blame). It could be refrigerated at this point ... say if it's time for bed and you don't have the energy to fill and process the jars right then! If so, return to a boil but be careful, once it's fully cooked, it's easy to accidentally burn the bottom.


Fill the jars and process for 10 minutes.

The pickling spices were based on a google result-recipe.
Given the sizes of the pieces, I mostly ignored the quantity
for the relish.

Aren't the colours beautiful??

Almost done!

All in all, a big success, that I'll certainly make again (though it may have to wait until next holidays)!

Mia