PIZZA NIGHT!!!!

For the Glee season 2 première, Carla and I decided it would be pizza night. Because we love to create food as much as we love to eat it, we of course had to make the dough and the pizza sauce, as well as top them. Overall, it was successful (with the exception of the pizza sauce which proved the internet is not always right - gasp).

I stopped in at Coles to get the ingredients. I was most concerned that Coles New Farm would not stock yeast because, well, it is Coles and it is Coles New Farm. I was pleasantly surprised, even with those two facts working against it, there was the yeast. I had researched the pizza sauce and the dough recipes but had left the pizza toppings to my inspiration. Walking around, the only thing I knew was going to be on them was mozzarella. I ended up also getting Hungarian Salami (which looked and was excellent), olives, smoked salmon, oregano and another herb who's identity escapes me. I am going to make it up and say chives (it wasn't but you were not there so I dare you to challenge me).

We were running a little late because I am a terrible estimator of time (I tend to assume I will magically get from one place to another without any travel time- not sure why I have not moved past this in the last 30 years). We jumped straight into action and this was a night when the new cooking aprons moved from being a fun purchase (and maybe slightly over the top) to a necessary cooking implement. There was flour everywhere!!

I was blending tomatoes as Carla was creating the dough. We did have fun trying to convert ounces of flour to measurements we can use in our metric world. Google came in handy (as it always does).

The dough was perfect. It was that consistency you see in movies and on TV, being sticky and stretchable. It was a team effort with Carla on making the dough and rolling it out and me in charge of kneading. The only thing that did not work on the night was the pizza sauce and that was all me. I picked a dodgy recipe for the sauce on the net that did not call for it to be simmered down at all. The outcome was tomato juice with a hint of garlic. We ran with it.

I think the main reason we wanted to make pizzas was so we could spin the dough into a pizza base like they do in the cartoons and of course we gave it a go. Here are some action shots - it was heaps of fun.

Each pizza was actually really good in its own way. The base on each was crispy and the bottom was browned (not Cajun) and the toppings worked well together and were not overpowering. Even the lack of a real pizza sauce did not take away from them as the salami pizza had enough flavour to make it work and the smoked salmon pizza did not need a strong tomato sauce under it. We were a little lucky this time.

In the following few days, I made my way to Wheel & Barrow and picked up a couple of pizza trays and a book of pizza recipes (which has a reputable recipe for pizza sauce). I had also just picked up a pizza slicer (the wheel one). All of this was the start of Wednesday pizza night. The following week (Wednesday just gone) was the first attempt from the new book and it was a resounding success - using the thin and crispy pizza base, the new pizza sauce recipe (which rightly involved simmering) and the Greek pizza topping recipe. The base was even better than the first time and who would of thought a pizza without mozzarella could be good?

And so there is no doubt, evidence now exists that Carla can clean. This photo has been sent to NASA who confirm it was not altered, photoshopped or staged in any way. They were quite excited by this development as a manned missions to Mars was thought to be less chance than Miss Peters with a cloth in her hand. They are now very excited about the prospect of exploring the next plant in our solar system. I hear the US congress is allocating funds to the project on the basis of this new evidence.