Easy Homemade Pizza

Anyone Italian will probably hate this recipe - it's not really a proper pizza, it's just a simple, healthy variation that's tasty and should satisfy any pizza craving you have! It's not as salty or greasy as frozen ,shop-bought, or takeaway ones sometimes are, and doesn't really take that long - as long as you'd wait for a takeaway!

Ingredients for the base (two servings roughly):

• 170g or 6 oz of self-raising flour (something to always have in the cupboard for cake)
• 15g or 1/2 oz butter
• Up to 140 ml or a 1/4 of a pint of milk (whole or semi, doesn't really matter)
• Seasoning and dried herbs.

Recipe:

• Rub the butter into the flour in a medium-large mixing bowl. If you're unsure how to do this, look at the scone recipe here.
• Add a shake of dried herbs, a pinch or two of salt, and some black pepper, and stir it all together.
• Now start adding the milk slowly and stir it until it makes the dough. If it's too sticky add more flour and if it's too dry keep adding milk. You might need to knead it as well. 
• Now flour a baking tray and roll out the dough so that it fits. It should be about 5-10mm thick.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees, and start thinking about the top of the pizza.

This is more down to personal preference. I like to put a squeeze of tomato ketchup on the top and spread it out so that it doesn't quite reach the edges as my base. You could also use tomato purée here, but I find that a little strong. I do sometimes mix ketchup and purée though. 

For my toppings, I like to fry 1 rasher of bacon cut up into pieces, a red pepper, and 4 mushrooms in a little olive oil. Start by frying the bacon and pepper over a medium heat for about 4 minutes, then add the mushrooms and continue frying until the bacon is done, and the pepper fairly soft.

Slice raw tomato and lay them on the pizza base, scatter the fried things on top and add lumps of mozzarella and grated cheddar or parmesan on top. Add some fresh basil leaves and bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes - until the cheese is molten and slightly browning on top. 

Pre-cooking

Serve with some green leaves and salad dressing. Last year, I ended up buying a bottle of balsamic vinegar (not very expensive) and mixing my own dressing because it was cheaper. I always had olive oil for cooking anyway, so balsamic and olive oil was a tasty (and healthier) alternative. 

The protein in this meal comes from the bacon and cheese, and carbs from the base. This probably goes under the comfort food category, but is still healthy! If you buy one bag of salad, and eat half the pizza each day, you don't have any waste. Add some carrot, celery and any other fresh salad you can buy seasonally and cheaply for a balanced meal.

Those colours though

Tune of the day: Johnny Flynn and the Sussex Wit - The Box

Tip of the day: Plan your meals for a week and make a shopping list based on that, at least for a while anyway until you get to grips with the sort of things you need, and what you like and what you use up. Also try and overlap ingredients - so if you make something which uses half a pepper, use another recipe which uses half a pepper later in the week, such as a risotto, or the Moroccan Cous Cous in half quantities. 

---K