Homemade pizza

09 Saturday Nov 2013

Posted by Zoli in bread, italian, kids, pizza sauce, quick and awesome, Sauces, the basics, tomato sauce, Vegetarian

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delia smith, easy pizza recipe, homemade pizza dough, ricotta, vegetarian dinner

If you’re daunted by homemade pizza, don’t be. It takes about 15 min to prepare the dough, an hour to rise while you do something else and another 15 min to cook. If you are home by 6, you can eat by 7:30. It’s cheap and you didn’t have to go anywhere.
Not having a pizza stone or a brick oven fireplace, this is my favorite pizza dough recipe (from Delia Smith’s ‘How to Cook Book One’):

Ingredients
makes 2 pizzas
350g plain or bread flour
8 fl oz of hot water (boil the kettle and mix with cold purified water to get the right temp)
2 tsp dried active yeast
1 tsp sugar
2 tbs olive oil
1 tsp salt

Quick garlicky tomato sauce
3-4 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
1 tin of plum tomatoes or 1/2 a large tin
olive oil
fresh or dried basil
salt and pepper
1 tsp sugar
dash rice vinegar (optional)

1) Mix dry ingredients together. Drizzle the olive oil and mix again.
2) Add the water and mix with a wooden spoon till roughly combined.
3) Dump on a clean work surface and knead for a few minutes until the dough becomes a soft squishy ball. It’s ok if at first it isn’t all sticking together. You shouldn’t need to add any extra flour to your work surface.
4) Place in an oiled bowl and cover tightly. If the covering is loose, the dough will develop a ‘skin’. Keep in a warm place for an hour until about doubled in size. An option is to warm the oven slightly, then turn off the heat and put the dough in there.
– While it is rising, make a quick sauce or use a homemade sauce you made earlier.
– Heat up olive oil in a sauce pot and gently fry the garlic for a few seconds.
– Add in the tomatoes and seasoning. Use a potato masher to break up the tomatoes.
– Cover with a lid and simmer on a medium heat for about 15-20 minutes.
– Blitz with a handheld blender.
– Taste and adjust seasoning.
5) Check on the dough after an hour. If it has risen nicely, Punch down, then gently knead again and cut in two.
6) Flour the work surface and then roll the dough out into the shape of your pan (circle or rectangle).
7) The best technique is to roll the pizza dough into a small circle shape and then a) pick up the small circle of dough, hanging on to the very edge so that the weight of the dough stretches itself. b) Move along all the outer edge with your fingers, letting the dough stretch out all sides. This is easier than flipping it up into the air! c) Place the dough back onto the work surface and roll out as big as you like. The dough should now be smooth and pliant. I recommend rolling out quite thin for a thin crispy pizza. Repeat with the other half of dough.
8) Sprinkle baking trays with corn meal to keep the pizza from sticking during baking. No need to use oil.
9) Bake on a high heat (400F) on the upper racks for about 10-15 minutes.

The kids had a split tomato-cheese with ricotta-cheese pizza and we had green chard, ricotta and kalamata olive

Lentil lasagna

04 Monday Nov 2013

Posted by Zoli in italian, kids, pasta, pasta sauce, tomato sauce, Vegetarian

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bolognese, lentil lasagna, puy lentils, tomato sauce, vegetarian dinner

Not for the faint of heart!
Lasagna is labor intensive, veggie or not. But it can be done in stages in order to fit into a busy week. I made the bolognese sauce and the bechamel sauce on Sunday, so tonight after work I only had to assemble the layers and scoot it into the oven. The plusses of such a time-consuming meal? Hmmm, I don’t know why but Americans really love their lasagna. Something about the yummy gloopiness of it. So that’s a plus. Also it’s a way to get some sneaky veggies in there. And it’s one of those hearty meals that we seem to need some days. It will feed a crowd of hungry people on a cold evening. Not every October night is salad night. Oh and, um, this is just as good if not better than any meat lasagna out there. I love you puy lentil. Sorry green lentil…

Ingredients for 4-6 people
1 1/2 cups of cooked lentils (puy, black or lentil verites)
1 can of tomatoes, chopped with their juice, or 200g of homemade tomato sauce
1/2 cup water
1/2 large onion or 1 small onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 celery, chopped finely
1 carrot, chopped finely
1/2 red pepper, chopped finely
1 fresh ripe tomato, chopped
about 6 mushrooms, chopped finely
1-3 sundried tomatoes, soaked and chopped finely (not the antipasti kind in olive oil)
1 tsp dried basil or 3-4 fresh basil leaves, chopped
salt and pepper
9 lasagna noodles, no pre-cooking necessary is recommended*
2 1/2 cups of shredded cheese (a mix of white cheddar and mozzarella is good)
Breadcrumbs for sprinkling on top (optional)
fresh grated parmesan for sprinkling on top (optional)
*This can be done with normal lasagna noodles that you don’t precook but you will need a bit extra sauce and longer cooking time.

for the bechamel
2 cups milk
3 tbs (or a bit less than 1/4 cup) of butter
1/4 cup white flour
handful of white cheddar or sharp white cheddar
1/4 tsp fresh nutmeg
salt and pepper

Lentil bolognese
1) Cook the lentils according to directions. They don’t take long and can cook while you prep the veggies. Drain and set aside.
2) In a big pot, heat up olive oil and gently fry all chopped veggies until soft. Stir a little and turn down heat if they are browning. Around 15 minutes. The sun-dried tomatoes makes this a RICH sauce. Depending on how strong they are, start with one first.
3) Add in the lentils, homemade tomato sauce or can of chopped tomatoes, seasoning and the 1/2 cup of water if needed. The sauce should be a little soupy.
4) Simmer gently for a few minutes and adjust seasoning if needed. This should be packed with flavor, as the noodles will absorb much of the sauce. Turn off the heat.

For the bechamel sauce
1) Melt the butter in a medium saucepan.
2) Add in the flour a little at a time and whisk over the heat. The texture of the roux should be like wet sand.
3) Allow to cook gently for a couple minutes to take out the taste of flour and then add in the milk.
4) Cook on a low heat, whisking every so often so the flour-butter roux incorporates into the milk and thickens it. Don’t let the milk boil.
5) When the sauce has begun to thicken, turn the heat down very low and season with plenty of salt and pepper and fresh grated nutmeg (1/4 tsp).
6) Add in the handful of cheddar, whisk to melt and taste the sauce. Adjust if necessary. This is not meant to be a super cheesy sauce as more cheese will be layered over it, come assembly time.

Assemble the lasagna
1) Preheat the oven to 375
2) Ladle some tomato sauce into a large baking tray and place down three lasagna sheets next to each other, not quite touching
3) Spoon about 3 heaping tbs of lentil tomato sauce on each lasagna sheet and spread
4) Next spoon about 1 1/2 or 2 tbs of bechamel sauce on each lasagna noodle
5) Sprinkle evenly with cheese
6) Repeat with two more layers
7) Add a little extra cheese to the top and then sprinkle with a little more basil, shredded parmesan, olive oil, breadcrumbs and salt and pepper
8) Cook in the oven for about 30-40 min or until golden and bubbly on top. Or cover with tin foil and then uncover for the last few minutes and brown the cheese on top under the broiler.