Miscellaneous memos

I made pizzas for my family on Sunday, simply because this is the first time in a long time that I have been home on a weekend. Also it is the first time in a long time since I did not bring any work home or been too exhausted to do anything else.

So I suggested that I would be making gourmet pizzas for everyone and asked for suggestions on what everyone would like to eat.

My brother and sister said they wanted full meat pizzas– the works. Salami, beef, ham, sausage on at least one of the pizzas and I tried my best to comply, but as much as I like meat, I just could not put all of it in one pizza.

I went shopping and got the ingredients for the pizzas.

First up, I bought prosciutto ham or parma ham and two flavoured sausages from the butcher. I did not get salami because I thought that prosciutto ham had enough flavour to overwhelm the pizza if need be. Also salami seems to be a perennial favourite at Pizza Hut, so I decided not to get it. I got sausages which were called Cheese and Red Wine and on hindsight, I should have gotten spicy sausages like the Brazilian ones which were on sale at the butchers or the Spanish chorizo sausages as we could have later separated the meats on the pizzas to let the flavours permeate through the dish.

I bought the rest of the ingredients at the supermarket. I was disappointed that butternut pumpkin or squash was not available, so I got a substitute in the form of zucchini or courgette. I was hoping to use the sweetness of the pumpkin in the meat pizza to add flavour and at the same time, slip in that veggie, but alas it was not meant to be.

Instead of using pizza base sold at the supermarket, I went to the Frozen section to get frozen roti prata to act as the base.

The suppermarket check-out chick gave me a bemused look when she got to the frozen roti prata part, because everything else that I have bought, like the cheese and sauce all seemed to fit into the meal I was planning except for the roti prata. So I reassured her that it all fits in and she smiled.

I started working on the pizzas as soon as I got home and the fun part was bonding over the making of the pizza toppings and deciding what we wanted on them.

My brother and sister helped out and it was fun to see what they chose to put on their pizzas.

Initially, we placed all the ingredients on the roti prata and baked them. But we realised that putting the prata base in the oven with the base sauce to bake for a while and it back in with the ingredients later made the pizza extremely crunchy and delicious.

We used grapeseed oil on the pan so that the prata would not stick onto it when it baked and some on the top for a bit of flavour.

We used a mixture of pesto and tomato sauce for the base and on some occasions, each sauce were on their own.

We used a variation of ingredients for our pizzas. Sliced button mushrooms, zucchini (as mentioned earlier), sun dried tomatos, mozzarella cheese (not from Italy of course, given the latest scare), cooked minced beef, feta cheese, plum tomatoes, prosciutto ham and sausages.

We were so ravenous that we devoured the first few without taking any pictures. These were the only two that we snapped.

But it was a good meal to bond over, especially over the making of the meal and during the meal where everyone was simply having a riot of a time.

Mum volunteered to make Devil’s curry (my uncle’s secret recipe) next week and I really can’t wait. Too bad I will be working though, so will be rushing home for that dinner.