Pizza Pronto! A fast, easy family favourite

Pizza….. who doesn’t love it?

In our house – we LOVE pizza and until recently, we used to spend far too much money eating it in nice beachside establishments! Now we still love to eat out together as a treat but when my good friend passed me this AMAZINGLY EASY recipe, it changed our pizza eating ways forever and so, in the interests of sounding like my mother, I thought I would share this recipe with you! (If I start giving you gardening tips about what grows well in the shade, will someone remind me I am 34 not 71!)

Now, I have officially never made this recipe on my own! It is hugely kid friendly and great fun so the girls always get to join in. Think of the sensory play benefits, not the mess as you get your kids involved with touching the soft flour, feeling and smelling and squidging the slightly warm dough and rolling it out.

It takes hardly any time at all to make these and never seems to fail to result in yummy pizza – bonus!

Easy Peasy Pizza Dough ingredients

· 1 packet of fast action dried yeast

· 1/4 teaspoon caster sugar

· 3/4 cup of luke warm water

· 1 3/4 cups of plain flour

· 1/2 teaspoon of salt

Mix it up

1. Mix together the yeast and sugar with the water and leave for 6-8 minutes
2. Place the flour and salt into a mixing bowl and slowly add the yeast/water mixture
3. Start mixing together with a spoon, then as a dough begins to form, use one hand to bring the dough together – at this point, if the mix seems too wet, simply add more flour little by little as you knead the dough into a ball. Knead this dough for 2-3 minutes (which in our house is roughly long enough for a fun burst of squashing and squeezing play dough type play!)

No need to prove this mix, simply divide up the dough and get rolling out. Use plenty of flour so the dough doesn’t stick to your table. If you don’t have a rolling pin, an empty or unopened bottle works really well!

This recipe usually makes either 2 large pizzas or 4 mini kids size pizzas, I double the lot if I am feeding 4 grown ups.

Now for the fun bit….the toppings!

I usually use the Napolina Tomato and Herb pizza topping (if you don’t finish the whole jar, just freeze it into portions for future pizzas!)

I want to try this pizza sauce from Jamie Oliver though, it sounds too easy and good not to try and I guess you could freeze it into batches too.

Ingredients

• 1 clove of garlic
• a small bunch of fresh basil
• olive oil
• 1 x 400g tin good-quality plum tomatoes
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

To make the sauce:
Peel and finely slice the garlic. Pick the basil leaves and discard the stalks. Heat a saucepan on a medium-low heat and add a splash of olive oil and the garlic. Cook gently until the garlic starts to turn golden, then add most of the basil leaves, the tomatoes, and a good pinch of salt and pepper. Cook gently for around 20 minutes, or until smooth, mashing the tomatoes up with a wooden spoon as it cooks.

When done, have a little taste, and season again if needed.

Once you or your kids have professionally spread tomato sauce on your bases, let the kids go to town on toppings. Bea is really hooked onto the idea that there should be a rainbow in her tummy (i.e. eat loads of different colour things of lovely bright colours and full of lovely healthy vitamins) I know pizza isn’t the healthiest of meals but you really can add pretty much anything to a pizza and the girls love putting loads of veg on theirs as well as cheese!

Our tiptop toppings….

Red Pepper

Red onion (chopped finely)

Spinach chopped up

Mushrooms

Feta cheese

Cheddar cheese

Salami

Ham

Chorizo

Olives (yes, both my kids love them!)

Once you finished your masterpieces, just pop them in the oven at approx 190C for 15mins. I have pizza trays that are brilliant for ensuring you get a nice crispy base. Check your pizzas after 15 minutes and depending on how thick or thin you managed to roll them they might need a bit longer.

If you have more dough than you need, roll out mini pizza bases and freeze them with some baking paper in-between so they don’t stick together – then you have even quicker pizzas at your disposal, simply top frozen base and cook from frozen in 10 – 15 mins.

ENJOY!

Love Mum on the Rock