WOOD FIRED PEPPERONI PIZZA

I love cooking in my family’s home made wood fired Pizza oven this is one of my favourite things to do with my mates and family, we make a great mess but have the best pizzas ever!  They only take two minutes to cook and my mum helps me make up loads of dough so we can make as many pizzas as we like, this is also good as sometimes we go wrong!  

I am a Pizzaiolo!



Best Ever Pizza Dough

Ingredients 

500g 00 blue caputo Italian flour

10g Himalayan sea salt 

50g extra virgin olive oil 

15g yeast

320g water

Place all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and either by hand or by machine with a dough hook mix for seven minutes, then dust a little flour over the dough mix and gently form into a ball, cover the bowl with a tea towel and leave in a warm area to prove for 1-2 hours until doubled in size if you want to use immediately, then other options are leave to prove slowly in the fridge for 24hrs, this is what I do as it gives me much more control over time and usage, this will keep for 48hrs in the fridge ready to go when you are, you can also freeze any left over dough at this stage, then when ready to use remove from the freezer defrost and once up to room temperature use as you would fresh.

Pizza Ingredients 

1 can san manzano tomato’s 

1 onion chopped

1 clove garlic chopped

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp dried oregano

1 bag pizza cheese Mozzarella super melty 

1 pack sliced pepperoni 

Make the pizza tomato base sauce by gently softening the onions and garlic in the olive oil, add the tomato and bring to a simmer, take off the heat and blitz to a smooth sauce, stir in the oregano and season with salt and pepper if needed.

Now your ready to rock and roll, divide the dough into 6 portions roll out each dough ball into a thin pizza base, spread a ladle of the San Marzano sauce over the base, top with torn pieces of the mozzarella and finish of with pepperoni, place on your pizza stone or in your pizza oven and cook for 2-3 minutes in a wood fired oven or 15-20 on a pizza stone in the oven, as a rule when the cheese is bubbling all over that's it Ta da done...

My friends have lots of different combinations of their favourite pizzas, BBQ chicken and spicy meatballs and of course the Hawaiian, where as nan loves peppers, onions and garlic, Grandad is just cheese and tomato with olive oil and Mum and Dad love a original Margarita with fresh basil.

QUESADILLA SWEET CHILLI GOOEY CHEESE

Serious gooey melty cheese pull, charred sautéed peppers and caramelised red onions with sweet chilli sauce this is so darn good make plenty as it's not a dish for sharing 

Prep time 5 minutes / Cooking time 10 minutes

Ingredients 

(serves 1-2)

2 large soft flour tortillas 

200g grated mozzarella cheese

50ml sweet chilli sauce 

1 glug olive oil

1 tbsp butter

1/4 red pepper diced

1/4 green pepper diced

1 small red onion sliced

1 small bunch fresh coriander chopped

1 tub sour cream

To Cook

Heat a skillet medium hot, add the olive oil, peppers and onions, sauté for five minutes until slightly caramelised, remove from the skillet, place the skillet back on the heat, lower to a medium heat, add the butter to melt.  Place one flour tortilla in the skillet, sprinkle with half the cheese, all the peppers and onions, some fresh coriander, the sweet chilli sauce and finish off with a final layer of cheese, place the remaining flour tortilla on top, leave to gently cook for approx five minutes, to turn over place a plate on top of the skillet and turn over so that the quesadilla is now on the plate, slide the quesadilla back in to the skillet and leave to gently cook for the remaining five minutes ensuring that all the cheese has melted.

To serve drizzle with sour cream more sweet chilli sauce and the remaining fresh coriander, serve cut in to quarters and enjoy