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