Monday, Week 2 - Pizza

Today was pizza day.  So many of the children wanted to help make it, but four little ones are enough in the kitchen.  I had promised one of the boys - a young volunteer - that he could help me make the dough, so that is what we did.  As soon as he saw me walk in the door, "Saraaah, Saraaah! Can we make the dough?!  Can we make the dough?!"  So of course we got straight to work.

Pizza dough

1kg self raising flour
1 tsp salt
2.5 cups warm water
4 tablespoons oil (olive oil if you've got it, but any will do)
2 tablespoons sugar
2 sachets yeast

Add the water, oil sugar, yeast together and stir.  Leave for 10 minutes.  Add to bowl of flour and salt.  Mix. Knead - add flour as necessary.  Put back in bowl.  Cover. Leave for an hour or two.  We left it to rise for an hour.

We also made the pizza sauce from scratch.  I diced up an onion and put it in a pan with a little hot oil.  We added a tablespoon of coriander and one of cumin and a tablespoon of sugar and stirred it all together.  After it started smelling amazing, we added 4 tins of chopped tomatoes and let it cook on low heat for about 30 minutes.

Now for the veggies.  I really wanted a rainbow of colours but didn't quite get there although it was pretty colourful:  I had a big bag of red and yellow capsicums - 5 of each colour and they diced them all up.  2 heads of broccoli, cut into teeny tiny florets.  A big bag of cherry tomatoes halved.  The kids helping today really took great care in chopping them up - better than I would have done it myself.  They were fab, paying close attention to detail.

Once the dough had risen, it was rolled out to fit the pan, placed over it and then cut around the sides so it fit nearly perfectly.  The tomato base was spread over the dough and then we had a bit of a conversation about which should be put on next: the vegan cheese (we used Redwoods Supermelting Mozarella Style Cheezly) or the veggies. In the end, I felt defeated and gave in, as the kids kept telling me that the toppings go on first and then the cheese.  I have always done it the opposite way.  So I let go of my control and they did it their way - it quite hard to let it go ;-)  Then we sprinked a teeny tiny bit of salt over the top and put it in the oven.  180 degrees Celsius for 12 - 15 minutes.  We cooked ours for 15 minutes.

We made two big pizzas and had enough veggies left over to toss in a bowl with some grated carrot for a salad.  We had quite a bit of dough left over, so we made some garlic bread.

Garlic Bread Spread

3 tablespoons Pure Dairy Free Sunflower Spread
1 bulb garlic, finely chopped
a little salt

Put all ingredients in a bowl and microwave til it has melted - about 30 seconds or cook on stove til melted.

Roll out dough and spread the spread all over.  Cook in oven for 15 minutes.  Tastes amazing.

The best thing for me was that the kids loved it.  A lot of them came back for seconds.  And the garlic bread was divine, especially dipped in the left over pizza sauce.

Tomatoes are one of the lowest calorie vegetables out there.  They are high in antioxidants, fibre, vitamins and minerals and are rich in potassium.  Lycopene, an antioxidant protects against UV radiation so offers some defense against skin cancer.  Tomatoes contain high amounts of vitamin A and C and also have small amounts of the B vitamins, iron and calcium.  You can't go wrong with tomatoes and homemade pizza can be a healthy way of getting them into you.