Sweet potato pizza

I made this yummy pizza when my sister and her partner were coming for dinner, I cut this up for pre dinner nibbles. Well, they were unfashionably late and by the time they did arrive I'd put the lasagna on the table and we tucked into that. They didn't even touch it! I was a bit annoyed because it tasted bloody good!

Anyway I made it again for my lunch a few days later. I really like it.

Wholemeal pizza dough
7g(two teaspoons) dry yeast 
1 teaspoon sugar
3/4 cup warm water
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon salt

Place yeast, sugar and water in a small bowl. Lightly mix with a fork and set aside for 10 minutes until frothy.

Put flour in a large bowl, with the salt. Add the yeast mix and olive oil to the flour and mix with a wooden spoon until dough comes together.

Knead for 5 minutes, then put back into the large bowl, cover with a tea towel and sit in a warm place for 1 hour, or until doubled in size.

Knock down the dough with your fist and divide into four portions.

Roll out on a floured surface and place on an oiled tray.

Pizza topping
1 medium sweet potato, peeled and sliced into 5mm thick rounds.
Olive Oil
Poppy seeds
Rosemary leaves and Rosemary flowers(if you have them)
Mixed greens - e.g. rocket, beet leaves, spinach
feta or goats cheese(optional)

Oil a baking tray, place sweet potato rounds in one layer. Loosely cover with foil and bake in a 180C oven for 10 minutes.

Brush some olive oil(I used garlic oil) on the pizza base. Lightly sprinkle poppy seeds and about 1 tablespoon of rosemary leaves.

Lay sweet potato rounds on base and then drizzle with olive oil.

Bake for 15 minutes at 230C.

When cooked, cut into slices and scatter mixed greens over and some cheese if using. Garnish with the rosemary flowers.

Sharing this recipe at Little Wolff blog for Little Veggie Kitchen

A family weekend

I am ever so grateful for my family. 

It has been a family orientated weekend and it couldn't have come at a better time.

It was Mum's birthday yesterday. My little sister came over from Gippsland with her family, a surprise for Mum. 

Earlier in the week my son come to stay at his Nannas. Lets just say he needed to be around family.

Saturday night we had a pizza night at Mum's house. We gathered and stuffed ourselves silly, told stories that has us all in fits of laughter and I can't say anyone left without feeling happier than when we began.

I cherish these times. I am ever so thankful my girls will have these memories to look back on. The family all eating and laughing together. The time with their cousins. I wonder how life could be any better. 

Little sister couldn't resist but to cook one of Dad's chorizos near the coals

Not everyones cup of tea, but the roast pigeon with green sauce was amazeballs. 

Izzy and Summer playing with their cousins. Having a ball making tents and
jumping on the bed in Nannas spare room.

Do you get together as a family often?
How do your gatherings go?
Do you always leave happier than you arrived?

An InLinkz Link-up

Pumpkin pizza

It's pumpkin season, try this for something different while it is cheap and readily available.

Pizza dough(enough for about 3 pizzas)

1 1/2 cups water

2 sachet yeast (about 15 grams)

1 teaspoon salt

Mix together and leave until foamy, about 5-10 minutes

Add 2 cups, from 4 cups of flour, and mix in, add rest. Stir to combine, then knead until smooth.

Place in a bowl and cover with a tea towel in a warm place and let sit for about 30 minutes.

Roast some sliced pumpkin until soft, I used the pizza tray to do this as a guide to how much pumpkin I would need. It should take about 15- 20 minutes.

Spread the pizza base thickly, about a centimetre or more thick, with the white sauce and arrange the pumpkin, then sprinkle with fresh rosemary.

White cheese sauce

2 tablespoons butter.

Saute half a small onion and a clove of garlic in the butter.

Add 3 tablespoons flour and stir to combine.

Add a little from 2 cups of milk, and keep adding a little at a time and whisk after

each addition to a smooth consistency.

Stir until it thickens.

Take off heat and stir in 120 grams of grated cheese, salt and pepper.

I used tasty cheese, if you have any other fancy pants cheese, add it instead or combine for a burst of flavour. 

Instead of pumpkin, I used sauteed mushroom and thyme on one of the pizzas.

Serve drizzled with a little olive oil, and garnish with some fresh rocket or spinach.

Mushroom and white cheese sauce with thyme 

You'll probably have cheese sauce left over:

• use it to make broccoli and/or cauliflower cheese
• add prawns and whatever other seafood to make a neptune topping for steak (we love to use lobster in cray season; that's if and when Boggy can catch them.
• Make a mornay with fish (atlantic salmon, prawns or just tinned tuna). Make a pie. Or just chuck in a casserole dish and bake with a packet of cheese and onion chips scrunched up on top. Bit yummy :)

When the moon hits your eye

Like a big fishy pie

That's... a mornay

Nope? Sorry......ahem.....I'm going now ;)

Peruvian purple potato pizza

Mum grew these strange looking spuds this year, given to her by a friend. Brett commented they look like dog turds when he saw them on the kitchen bench. I thought they looked like short stubby fingers.

The smallest ones I planted in my garden and the rest I boiled up to use on a pizza. Below are the boiled potatoes I peeled and sliced up, check out the colour. 

Potato Pizza

I used my scone dough base.

Firstly I smothered on some oil. Call me strange or clever, but I always keep the jar of oil that is left over from anchovies. Flavour central! I use it for starting onions and garlic for pasta sauce or even for frying a flavoursome egg. If you are gagging at the thought, you could just use plain old olive oil.

Next I scatter and rub in a finely chopped clove of garlic. If you don't want to get your hands all oily, just scatter the garlic over.

Place sliced boiled potatoes on base, you could put them on all fancy like or just willy nilly like I did. I have used left over roast potatoes for this too. 

Scatter on some rosemary leaves and a drizzle of olive oil and bake at 200 deg.  for 15 - 20 minutes.

Eat it like that, or drizzle some more oil over it and eat. Very delicious.

Pizza night

Every so often Mum will decide to fire up the brick oven, and this always means pizza night.

When we were growing up in Kalangadoo, we had a huge brick oven out the back yard. Mum used to make a massive amount of bread dough, which made about 22 loaves of bread. We were treated to home made bread and other scrumptious treats like empanada. Everyone in town would have known Mum was cooking bread, with the waft of fresh bread permeating from our backyard. We even had one particular neighbour who always would make her way down to visit on these days, we could see her coming and knew she was coming to scab a loaf of bread! Its one of the things we still laugh about today.

Last year, Mum and Dad decided to build a wood fired brick oven in the backyard of their current home. They had help from family and friends, and it was a great day. Old friends of the family came over from Penola to help, as Dad had helped them build one at their house years earlier.

A tradie friend of Dads came to help, as he was interested in how it was done. He did most of the building, and Dad tried to remember how it all went together, and Mum putting her two bobs worth in, on how she wanted it. The one they built is a quarter the size of the old one, she doesn't need to cook for a family of seven anymore.

Dad removing the fire into a wheelbarrow and Mum getting
a wet cloth to wipe the ash off the bottom, ready for the pizza
to go straight on the hot bricks.

We turn up at Mums, we don't bring anything. She has made pizza dough, and has all the makings out in the shed, where she has tables set up to roll out dough and make our own.

Before the pizza goes in, and bit of flour is thrown on to the bottom of the oven to see how hot the oven is. If the flour burns too quickly, the oven is too hot.

We eat pizza until we are bursting at the seems, and it doesn't matter how full we are, there is always room for Mums strawberry dessert pizza. Its delicious.

She puts strawberry jam on the base, then cream cheese with vanilla, topped with fresh strawberries. We have done cream cheese, banana and choc chips before, its just as good. I'm thinking I might try some mini marshmallows on it next time.

Mmmmmm!