Homemade Pizza

Pizza is probably the meal I eat the most. Not actually through choice, but because it's my boyfriends favourite, and we have 'Pizza Friday', every week without fail we make our own. Here I'm going to give you some advice on what I find works best when making homemade pizza, but the great thing is that it can all be customised to suit your taste.

For the pizza dough, I've tried out quite a few recipes but I've found the best one to be this by Jamie Oliver. Every two weeks I make up half of this recipe, use it to make two pizzas that same day, and then freeze the rest in portions for two pizzas the next week. I roll the dough out as thin as possible, with a rolling pin on a floured surface, and then I transfer the dough onto baking paper to finish with sauce and toppings. As you can see from the picture below, I don't really worry about getting a rounded shape...hey, it's rustic!

When it comes to sauce, I've tried making my own using chopped tomatoes with oregano, basil and garlic, and while it tasted good, it made the base quite soggy. The same happens with passata, so normally I just use tomato puree on it's own, which is good for me as I like the intense flavour it adds to the pizza.

Toppings are a personal thing, but my favourites would have to be pepperoni, olives, prosciutto and onion, but you can add anything you want. Normally I like to experiment with recipes, but in my opinion pizza is one of those things you want to keep simple. At the end of the day, it's comfort food, and I want to use things I know I'm going to like. When baking the pizza, make sure to preheat your oven to the highest setting possible, and this way it should only take around 5 minutes to cook, but be sure to check regularly.

Butternut Squash Lasagne

Lasagne is not something I make often; in fact I've made it only once before this, and that was a vegetarian one too, with kale and mushrooms, instead of the traditional red and white sauces. It was nice but it's one of those things which for me is a bit of a hassle and can end up taking quite a long time, but nevertheless, I had the leftover lasagne sheets from the one I made before, and not wanting to waste them, I made another, this time using one of my other favourite vegetables, butternut squash. I should probably explain here that I'm actually not a vegetarian, I've just started to eat a lot more vegetable-based dishes since getting the River Cottage Veg Everyday book. That said, this is my own recipe, and it's good because it's quite quick. Here there's cheese instead of a white sauce, and the tomatoes can just cook for as long as you've got, in my opinion it doesn't add any flavour cooking them for hours and hours on end, although of course it will thicken the sauce.

Serves 4
Ingredients

1 butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and cut into 1cm cubes

Pinch chili flakes

6 sage leaves, chopped

1 onion, finely chopped

1 tin chopped tomatoes

3 tablespoons tomato puree
250g ricotta

9 dried lasagne sheets

150g ball mozzarella, torn into pieces

Parmesan or pecorino cheese

Method

1. Roast the squash in a little olive oil with the sage and chili, at 220c/gas 200c/gas mark 7 for around 35 minutes.

2. In the meantime, prepare the tomato sauce, fry the onion in olive oil until it starts to brown, then add the tomatoes, and tomato puree, and leave to simmer for 20 minutes.

3. When the squash is cooked, mash slightly to form a chunky paste, and add in roughly half of the ricotta.

4. Coat the bottom of an oven dish with half of the remaining ricotta, on top of this then place a layer of lasagne sheets, then the butternut squash mixture, another layer of lasagne sheets, then the tomato sauce and mozzarella, and another layer of lasagne sheets. Finish with the remaining ricotta and a good sprinkling of parmesan cheese.

5. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes!

Beetroot Risotto with Bresaola

Risotto is my favourite comfort food. I absolutely love the stuff. Does anyone watch Saturday Kitchen? Well, if I were ever to appear on there it would definitely be my food heaven, and it must be the dish that I have made the most, in fact in my second year of University I must have made it every week without fail, much to the disapproval of my boyfriend; 'but it's just rice and cheese'. It is so much more than that!

Obviously, risotto is normally made with rice, but for a change I decided to use pearl barley, which I had never tried before, and it turned out delicious, in fact I actually preferred it to a 'traditional' risotto which was surprising. The beetroot is sweet, and turns the whole risotto purple, while the bresaola adds a salty flavour (although this could be left out if preferred).

Serves 2

Ingredients

Butter

1/2 onion, finely chopped

170g pearl barley

1 glass red wine

1 litre stock

200g pre-cooked beetroot

30g grated parmesan (or pecorino)

4 slices bresaola

Method

1. Fry the chopped onion in a knob of butter, taking care not to burn, for around 10 minutes.

2. Add the pearl barley and cook for a further 2 minutes.

3. Add the wine and simmer, stirring frequently until no liquid remains.

4. Add a quarter of the stock, and simmer, stirring frequently, until no liquid remains. Repeat with remaining stock. It should take around 30-40 minutes for all the stock to be absorbed.

5. As the last portion of stock is added, add the beetroot to warm through.

6. Remove the risotto from the heat, add the grated cheese and stir through. Leave to sit for 2 minutes.

7.  Serve the risotto topped with the slices of bresaola!