Ridiculously Tasty Pizza!

One of my favourite memories of birthday parties as a child was making our own pizzas... Mum used to buy a selection of toppings, a load of cheese, some pizza bases and tomato puree or BBQ sauce, and we'd all pick our favourite bits and make our own pizza. So the other day when I was wandering down the supermarket aisle and saw some pizza bases I just thought it would be nice to do it again!



I then decided to get a pizza mix, instead of a base, so that I could roll it out nice and thin to get a gorgeous Italian style base. Then I bought a load of different toppings and put them on with a pesto base... easy and ridiculously tasty!

Ingredients

pizza base mix
1 tablespoon green pesto
1 tablespoon sour cream
1/2 red pepper, sliced
1/2 red onion, sliced thinly
a small handful of walnuts, chopped (optional)
1 chicken breast, cooked and ripped into pieces
a few pieces of chorizo or salami
parmesan shavings
a handful of mixed green leaves (or just go for some rocket)
balsamic syrup

Mix the pesto and sour cream together (you might want to double the quantities if you're pizza is quite large).


Mix your pizza base according to packet instructions and roll out nice and thin. Pop it onto a piece of baking paper on a tray, then coat thinly all over with your pesto mix.




Build up your pizza with all of the toppings (except the leaves and balsamic). The order doesn't really matter but I would probably go veggie stuff at the bottom, then meat and finally scatter the cheese over.

Then pop in the oven for about 10 minutes, or until the base is lovely and crispy and the cheese is bubbling away.

Add the leaves and a drizzle of balsamic - a pizza and salad in one! Then serve it up with a glass of cold white wine (still on the baking paper if you fancy a rustic style dinner), cut it into pieces and dig in with your fingers!

Yum!!

Puff Pastry Treats

Here are two easy recipes for puff pastry that make a great little starter or lunch. I bought ready made pastry and then used it for a mushroom and cheese pasty, and an asparagus and red onion tart.

In these experiments I found that the pastry needed to be thinner for the pasty, so that it doesn't have a dry texture, and you may want to half bake the pastry for your tart before adding the ingredients so that you don't over cook the asparagus.

Anyhoo... delicious pastry treats that can be done again and again with different ingredients and flavours. Yum!

 

Asparagus and Red Onion Tarts

Makes 2 tarts

 

Ingredients

puff pastry
egg, cracked and beaten
1/4 red onion, chopped
4-6 asparagus, chopped in half
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
black pepper
parmesan cheese, grated

Recipe 

Preheat the oven to about 180degrees.

Roll out the pastry until it is only a couple of mm thick. Cut into rectangles just longer than your asparagus halves, and fold over the edges. Brush with a little egg.


Fry the red onion and asparagus in a drop of olive oil for 6-8mins until the asparagus begins to soften. Add a healthy splash of balsamic, and season with black pepper.

Fit your mixture into the rectangle of pastry and sprinkle parmesan over the top. Bake in the oven for about 10mins, or until your pastry is golden and flaky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mushroom and Cheese Pasty

Makes 2 pasties

 

Ingredients

puff pastry
olive oil
1/4 red onion, chopped
handful of mushrooms, chopped
black pepper
2 tablespoons of cream cheese
cheddar cheese, grated
egg, cracked and beaten

Recipe 

Preheat the oven to about 180degrees.

Roll out the pastry until it is only a couple of mm thick. Cut into squares ( about 15cm).

Fry the red onion in a drop of olive oil for a couple of minutes, until it starts to soften. Add the mushrooms and a good twist of black pepper. Fry for a further few minutes, until the mushrooms are browning.

 
Add the cream cheese to the frying pan, and mix in to coat all of the ingredients.

Fit the mixture into one half of the pastry square, leaving space to fold into a triangle. Add the grated cheese.

Brush the egg around the edges, fold the pastry and stick the edges together. You may want to use a fork to add a pattern, or a knife to cut a couple of slits in the top of the pasty. Brush with egg and bake in the oven for about 10mins, or until your pastry is golden and flaky.

Made-up Make-Me-Better Salad

So tonight I wasn't feeling my best - probably just overtired from my exciting weekend (which I will write about tomorrow), and a nasty sore throat making itself apparent. So I wanted a quick, easy, healthy dinner that would make me better! My mum always used to say that oranges would cure any sore throat, so I was determined to use oranges of some kind! I also had a couple of pork medallions and some feta left over from last night which I wanted to use. So I had a fumble in my fridge and decided on this...

Ingredients

Pork Medallions
Satsuma
Splash of Fresh Orange Juice
Generous Dash of Balsamic Vinegar
Pinch of Sugar
Mixed Lettuce Leaves
Red Onion
Cucumber
Feta Cheese

Recipe

Sear the pork for a few minutes on each side, then continue to cook it on a lower heat.

Add the satsuma segments, orange juice, balsamic and sugar to the pan when the pork is starting to look cooked.

Prep the salad. (I love red onion so had a good portion!) Crumble or chop the feta into small pieces.

When the pork is cooked through, add to the salad and pour the sauce over.

Verdict

This was exactly what I fancied tonight, and for a bit of a concoction, it was fairly good! The recipe definitely still needs some tweaking, so any suggestions would be most welcome! I added the sugar to try and avoid it being to tart, but it still had a bit of a twang (actually quite nice to spark some feeling into my numbing throat!) So it's an idea I'll revisit when I next need a Make-Me-Better Salad!