Home-made is always better.
We have a take-away night once a week and sometimes instead I'll make home-made pizza's instead of eating the greasy food from the only available take away in the town. Usually I'll use flat bread as a base and top it with all the things we like to eat, but I was excited to make a base from scratch and luckily the Seasons cookbook provides a great base recipe.
A big thing for me is working with yeast, which I haven't done since I was a teenager making pizza bases in my Mum's bread maker (they were always the BEST pizza bases!). I was nervous to try it without the safety of the bread maker, but there's only one way to learn new things hey?
So I activated the yeast by adding it to some water with some sugar to feed it and set it aside until it bubbled at me. Then I mixed it with the dry ingredients gently and set it aside to prove. Once it had doubled in size I cut it into quarters and set it aside again until it had doubled in size.
See? Not as hard as I thought! They were so soft it seemed a shame to flatten and roll them out, but it must be done for a good pizza!
First I made Hubby's pizza. A Meat + Meat + Meat pizza. Just the way he likes it.Then a little ham and pineapple one for Noah. I must admit, I'm pretty sure I ate more of it than he did.
Then, I made a smaller one with the garlic topping recipe in Seasons. Definitely more garlic next time. I could probably eat it straight from the bulb I love it that much. It was very simple: garlic, cheese and olive oil. Definitely don't forget the olive oil or it's a bit dry.
Then my favorite. Pizza Margherita. The first thing that strikes me about this recipe is that there is no sauce for a base. The tomatoes are squeezed to extract the juice (so it doesn't go soggy) and then lovingly placed on the pizza along side some mozzarella, basil and olive oil. When baked the cheese forms the missing sauce base, but I still found the end result a bit dry. In my opinion, anyway. Next time I'll make a basic tomato sauce base, but still keep the rest of the ingredients the same. Less cheese so my ass doesn't get so big. A crack of salt when done baking makes the world of difference. DON'T FORGET IT!
While different to the usual take away version of the Margherita, it was still a great pizza to eat and full of flavor.
