Veggie "Works"!!

Yes, nice slogan for people like me. But I was actually referring to the pizza of that name. I made it. Yes, I did!!

I made pizza - from scratch. (Ok, that sounds good!)

I adapted this one from Martha Rose Shulman's recipe - although I've taken HUGE liberties with her recipe. (Didn't feel like buying extra ingredients that weren't regulars in my pantry.) For one, I improvised the dough. Then, I added my own toppings. (Hey, it's MY pizza! And my tummy.) What I did leave the same was the "original Italian" concept of the "white" pizza. No marinara sauce, just veggie toppings, herbs, and a teensy bit of cheese, on the dough.

(Note to Self: Don't allow Fi to dictate what this is - it is "true" pizza, even if he thinks it is a bunch of veggies piled atop rolled chapati dough ... he actually has the temerity to call it "Chapizza"! Well, let him take a look at these pics.)


"Pizza" enough for you? Then, recipe? Willingly!! As I said, I made this pizza from the ingredients already in my kitchen - so you might find it a bit crude. Disclaimer: My digestive system has merrily consumed this - several times - but you're trying it at your own risk. If that doesn't make you feel better, go back to the original recipe! :-) Based on other MRS recipes, I can promise you a stunner there.

Ingredients (this should make one 8" pizza):

For the Dough:
* Wheat flour - a handful.
* Besan (Chickpea flour) - a handful. (Gives a great flavor to the base - although it becomes a bit harder to roll out the dough without breaking.)
* Plain yogurt (I used yogurt to help the dough rise. You can use yeast or baking powder if you have either of those. The actual recipe, of course, calls for yeast.)
* A few drops of olive oil for the dough - plus a few more to line the dish you're baking it in.
* Salt to taste.

* Optional: A little bit of baking powder - or yeast.
* Optional - and untried: Pigglett mentioned that it might be interesting to mix a little (just a little) of rava (wheatlets) - or maybe rice powder - to make the base crunchier. I think we've messed with the original enough so I'd rather first perfect what I have before I add more complexity ingredients into the recipe.

For the Toppings:
* Come on, you've had pizza, haven't you? But here are some suggestions - tomato slices, chopped mushrooms, bell pepper slices, spinach, minced pineapple, sliced black olives, jalapeno pepper bits, chopped spring onion or leeks. MRS tried potato slices on her pizza - and it looks delicious enough that I hope to try it the next time.
* A small handful of parmesan or mozzarella flakes. (It's alright - a little fat helps you absorb Vitamins A, D, E and K.)
* A few herbs or a herb mixture. (You can try oregano, chives, basil, and, if you want something stronger, dill, parsley or mint.)
* Salt and (if you want) pepper to taste.


Preparation:
* Mix the wheat and chickpea flours with the salt (and baking powder, if you're using that). Now add a few drops of olive oil, and the yogurt as required, and knead. The dough should not be too soft (a little more consistency than if you were making chapatis). Once you're done, keep it aside to rise. (Cold weather diversionary tactics: Warm the oven and push the dough in for about an hour.)

* Chop or slice the veggies. If you're using spinach, I'd recommend baby spinach as it is (i.e., don't chop).

* After about an hour or two when the dough is ready (with the yogurt, the dough didn't rise a lot - that may be because I didn't keep it in the oven for too long - but I'd also added a pinch of the baking powder, which eventually helped), roll it out till it is approx. 3-4 mm thick. At this point, set your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Brush olive oil on your baking dish. (I have a fairly heavy "pizza" dish which heats evenly in the oven. Don't use foil or something "soft", your pizza won't be evenly cooked on the bottom.) Put the rolled dough on it and brush a few drops of olive oil on the top. Spread your veggies evenly on the dough. Top with the herbs, salt and pepper if needed, and the flakes of cheese.


* By now the oven should have heated up to 400 F. Put the dish with the pizza into the oven - and wait. The pizza sides should start turning a light brown before you turn the oven off. Keep the pizza in for ten minutes longer, then remove and slice. Serve.

This takes five minutes to set up once the dough is ready and the veggies are chopped, and another fifteen or twenty minutes in the oven. I've kept a batch of dough ready and some veggies chopped in the fridge against a busy evening this week; so I can have dinner ready in less than a half hour once I get home.

I can think of several detours on the straight and narrow. I've already tried topping it with roasted sesame and flax seeds. Goat cheese and walnuts make a wonderful alternative to regular cheeses. (MRS has another recipe which incorporates these ingredients - I can't wait to try that one out.) Chopped fresh garlic will taste delicious too - or some garlic butter (a.k.a. Papa Johns Pizza). And, of course, more experiments with the dough, which is clearly still a work in progress - albeit delicious enough for one hungry tummy after a long hard day.

Here's my sesame-seed-topped pizza!

One down. I can't say how many more to go, but the next date is 30 November. Cross fingers and toes!

Catching up - in the Kitchen

It's true, you know, what those who know say. The more you run, the more there is to run for, and then there's no time - and if there is time, there's no energy - to do the things you really want to do. I've realized that I don't like not writing, even if it is just something descriptive. There's almost always something that's prompted the post - and I can usually follow my train of thought long after I wrote the words.

Things have been really busy lately, not much time to relax - but I've been doing some creative cooking to refresh myself. Kills two birds with one stone. You've probably heard me talk about Martha Rose Shulman fairly often in the recent past. Now, with winter on its way here, I've been keeping things warm with a bunch of her "oven" recipes. Here's one of them - an eggplant and chickpea casserole. I modified her recipe to include zucchini in the casserole - a splash of green - and sprinkled a little parmesan cheese and some sesame and flax seeds right on top before I sent it into the oven. It gives a nice, crusty cover. My littlest roommate (now, of course, my one and only roommate) baked biscuit which went wonderfully with the chickpeas. Take a look!