Pizza Secrets

Pizza
Simple? Yes. Boring? Hardly.





My ultimate pizza dough recipe. Dead simple. Dead quick. Dead delicious.

Whole Wheat and Honey Pizza Dough recipe from Allrecipes.com
(If we don't happen to have honey or I just don't feel like dirtying a spoon to scoop some out of the jar (ie, most of the time), we omit the honey, and honestly, I can't taste the difference.)
The Mustards split this recipe in to two pizza pies.

Mr. Mustard is real particular about the order of his pizza toppings.
This is how he does:

In order!

Pizza/tomato sauce
Cheese
Onions
Vegetables etc
Spices

The tastier of the two pizzas pictured featured diced potatoes & pesto!

And now for the real secret to gooood pizza:
HOT OVEN!
Forget 350F or whatever the recipe says.

- Turn your oven to broil with the rack near the top.
- Sprinkle a cookie sheet with cornmeal and place the bedazzled pizza in the centre.
- Now let that baby buuuuurn (not literally) for 7-10 minutes, or until everything is nice and bubbly and lightly browning.

Daily Granola, Dilly Avocados and Oven Baked Fries

These are a few (three) of my favorite things:



Daily Granola

I know I have already talked about this fabulous granola before, but I just have to.
I've made at least three batches of it (and it makes a lot!) and yes, it is that good.
Just in case you did not get the recipe from my not-so-long-ago very first post, it is here from orangette.blogspot.com



Dilly Avocados

I am currently having a love affair with avocados. I could eat them every single day.
Ripe avocados, drizzled with olive oil & vinegar, sprinkled with salt, pepper and dill.



One of my favorite meals ever is: whatever vegetable we happen to have in the fridge, cut up haphazardly, tossed with oil and spices, into the oven. But I got inspired by Joy's recipe (from joythebaker.com/blog) for oven baked fries and decided on this:

Oven Baked Potato and Red Pepper Fries

(I was cooking for just me that night; it gave me a generous plate)

1 potato, washed with skin on
1 red pepper
1/2 medium onion
2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 tsp fresh chopped rosmary
1 tsp fresh chopped thyme + 3 small entire sprigs
salt & pepper

- Cut potato and pepper into fry-looking strips. Cut onion into large pieces, separate slightly.
- Toss veggies with oil and spices in a bowl, spread on a baking sheet and cook at 400 F for 30 minutes or so, until potatoes are browned.
- I like to dip mine in mayonnaise and ketchup.
*If it weren't for the mayonnaise, this meal would also be vegan!

*** I had to take the peppers off the tray about 15 minutes before the potatoes were done because the peppers were cooking too much. Next time I will either: boil the potatoes a bit before, or add the peppers later.
Boiling them beforehand would use more energy, but I could mix everything together well before they go into the oven. Hm.
I am still learning!



Besides the mayonnaise, everything in this entry is vegan! Hooray.