My Family Table

There are 4 children in this house, between 10 and 18 years old so they are in hungry mode and I love it!

Finally the amount of food consuming matches the way that I cook………copious quanities of food come out of this kitchen and there are times I even find myself having to portion control. Wow!

There are a few dishes that get made on a regular basis here.

Everyone loves tacos and I load a board full of chopped salads in their rainbow colours and everyone helps themselves. We use this same method for Chicken Fajitas where I’ve made Naan bread wraps, marinated Chicken, and then all the chopped salads. Everyone loads up their wrap how they like and less the messy food begin!

Lasagne is also a crowd pleaser at our table. Firstly because it’s delicious and secondly because it can become warm ups for school the next day. My son Matthew loves helping my assemble the Lasagne, taking great delight in breaking the lasagne sheets (if I’m using dried pasta) and arranging them perfectly to fit the shape of the deep baking dish. He then carefully spreads the Bechemel Sauce and so on and so forth. I think he thinks it’s a bit like lego. The Cheese, I can’t forget the cheese, it must be spread evenly over the whole rectangle baking tray so that someone is not going to be left out of the melty oozy goodness. Because of his help, I let him choose his piece when it’s done and the rotten thing loves the piece that I love the most which is……the most burnished edge piece.

The one dish that everyone loves the most is to make their own pizza. I’ve got this great Naan bread/pizza base recipe that is so economical, simple and tastes delicious. It involves pan frying the dough in a dry frying pan and turning it over. It puffs up like a woopie cushion, much to the delight of the kids and these make the perfect pizza base.

The problem with making pizzas in your normal home oven is that it doesn’t get hot enough, even with a pizza stone ( I would need 6 of these to feed us all at once).

By having the base cooked, it means that in the 10 or so minutes your pizza is in the oven, the edges get crispy and the toppings cook, but you don’t end up with a soggy bottom. No one likes a soggy bottom, particularly with pizza!

Check out my video where I show you how to make the dough, pan fry the bases and then turn it into pizza. The amount of comments and pictures from people that I’ve received that have tried this, truly makes me so happy. It’s a revelation.

Recipe & Method:

In your mixing bowl that you’ve fitted a dough hook, put:

4 cups of baker’s flour (also known as 00 flour, strong flour & bread flour)

1 teaspoon of dried yeast,

1 good glug of olive oil,

1 teaspoon of good salt,

Enough hot water out of the tap (approx. 2 cups but hold some back as flours absorb water differently each time.)

Turn on mixer on low speed and allow it to form a dough. (if you don’t have a mixer you can put this in your bread maker or do this by hand it will work the same, but I’m lazy and I have a mixer so that’s what I use.)

Mix for up to 5 mins. for best results leave dough in the bowl covered with plastic wrap or a plate for 20 mins.

I’m never this patient, but resting it means that when you roll it out and doesn’t spring back so much.

I put up with this because patience is a virtue I have yet to receive.

Roll the dough out into a large log shape and cut 12 discs.

Roll each disc out as thin as you can so that it is the size of your frying pan.

Preheat your non stick frying pan and when hot place the thin dough into the pan.

Allow to cook on one side until just starting to burnish.

Flip over and if the pan is hot enough and you haven’t pierced the dough, it should start puffing up like a woopie cushion.

Allow that to cook on the second side until lightly burnished, then remove from the pan.

Put the next thin dough in and keep going until all are cooked.

To make Garlic Naan, brush while hot with melted butter that has had a garlic clove zested into it.

It is delicious!

To make it into pizzas, lay out bases on baking trays and get everyone to make their own. We put a Tomato Sauce down first, then goes the mozzarella cheese, then the kids like bacon or ham and then top with more cheese, cheddar this time.

I like cherry tomatoes on mine, and peelings of zucchini, olives, basil, anything really.

If it happens to be Fig season, my absolute favourite Pizza is with olive oil base, halved Figs and Marinated Fetta or Parmesan. Now I’m salivating!

I also love using my Beetroot and Balsamic Chutney as the sauce for the base. Or my savoury Apricot Sauce is delicious with Chicken on my pizza. The possibilities are endless.