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!!

A quick potato salad recipe!

This is just a quick post because I was so chuffed with my potato salad that I had for lunch today - made out of the left overs in my fridge last night - that I wanted to share the recipe! Unfortunately I have no photos except a terrible one of the second half of the salad in it's Tupperware ready for tomorrow's lunch! But seriously, this is a real easy, really tasty potato salad that you can make the night before a miserable Monday morning to cheer you up later in the day - and it really did put a smile on my face at lunchtime!


So here we go... quantities are vague as ever - makes about two portions - but you can really just use up left overs for this recipe!

Ingredients

a couple of handfuls of small potatoes (or chop up a couple of bigger potatoes!)
about 100ml sour cream
a splash of white wine vinegar
generous twist of salt and black pepper
a handful of fresh dill, chopped finely (or just use about a teaspoon of dried dill like I did!)
1/4 red onion chopped very finely
1/2 cucumber, seeds scraped out and chopped
about 100g smoked salmon (or however much you can spare!)

Boil your potatoes for around 15minutes or until soft.

While they're boiling, mix together the sour cream, white wine vinegar, dill and seasonings in a large bowl.

Drain your potatoes and add to the dressing while still warm. Leave to cool while you chop the remaining ingredients.

Once cool, add the cucumber, onion and smoked salmon and mix through until everything is coated nicely in the dressing. Pack up in a Tupperware or two for lunch the next day, or serve with a green salad and a glass of cool white wine for dinner!

Variations

If you have a different combination of ingredients in your fridge or want to try a different potato salad then go for it! Why not swap the smoked salmon for some smoked haddock and go heavy on the black pepper? Or you could easily swap the sour cream for crème fraîche (maybe use a bit less as this tends to be a bit richer) or natural yoghurt, though the red onion works really well with sour cream. And if you're less of a fish fan, then go for some cut up smoked bacon or pancetta instead and swap your dill for some fresh parsley. The opportunities are endless... so Happy Monday... have a lovely week and enjoy!

Super Easy Open Baguette

This was a ridiculously easy but very tasty meal that I cooked for a friend the other night after work. When you want to eat nice food, but really can't be bothered to spend hours in the kitchen, then this might be one for you! You can change the ingredients to anything that you fancy (I think most people would add tomatoes to this but I don't particularly like them), or you might prefer different toppings altogether...

Whatever you put on it, a part-baked baguette topped with tasty bits is going to be a hit! And if you are anything like me, then you just cannot have too much cheese...

Serves 2

Ingredients

1 large part-baked baguette
2 tablespoons green pesto (preferably homemade but if it's going to be a quick after-work dinner like it was for me then shop bought will definitely suffice!)
1/2 red pepper, sliced
4 pieces parma ham
1 mozzarella ball, sliced
freshly ground black pepper

Method

Cut the baguette in half and then top up with the ingredients in the order shown below. Make sure to give a good twist of black pepper before putting it into a preheated oven (according to the baguette packet instructions). I would probably bake it for about 10mins or until the cheese is bubbling deliciously!

Serve with a green salad (delicious with rocket!) and add some roughly chopped fresh basil leaves to compliment the pesto flavours... Enjoy!