Pizza

"I'm combining two recipes for dough," says Raul. "It is important to research and that will save time in the long run. My mom used to send me for dough at the bakery. Every Saturday for a year that was my job, go for dough and then make pizza for everyone. This recipe is from ricardocuisine.com with some advice from lidia added. And some thoughts from my all time favourite cooking website cookingforengineers.com. I'm adding the water in two portions ten minutes apart - for proper bread making you first create a sponge and then it picks up the water properly so there are no lumps. And Lidia says not to roll the dough out, just pat it down. Why spend all that time inflating it and then flatten it out?"

Pizza Dough à la ricardocuisine.com

Preparation time: 10 min
Waiting: 1 h
Output: two 35-cm (14-inch) pizzas

310 ml (1 1/4 cups) water, lukewarm

15 ml (1 tablespoon) olive oil

15 ml (1 tablespoon) honey

680 ml (2 3/4 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour

10 ml (2 teaspoon) instant dry yeast (or pizza yeast)

2.5 ml (1/2 teaspoon) salt

1. In a bowl, combine the water, oil, and honey. Set aside.

2. In a large bowl, with a wooden spoon, or in a stand mixer (using the dough hook), combine the flour, yeast, and salt. Add the water mixture and stir until it forms a soft ball. Knead the dough for about 3 minutes in the stand mixer or on a floured surface.

3. Place the dough in a clean and lightly oiled bowl. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm and humid place for about 1 hour or until the dough doubles in size.

Use the dough immediately or cover with plastic wrap. Keep in the refrigerator for up to 12 hours. Otherwise, freeze it.

The pizza dough spreads evenly and smoothly. Raul covers it with a thin layer of ketchup. He then adds a mixture of shredded mozzarella cheese, grated Parmesan cheese, Greek oregano and Onion Crunch. He then sprinkles the pizza with sliced mushrooms and pre-cooked Italian sausage which he is delighted to announce were 40 percent off. A sprinkling of black pepper and the pizza is ready to go into the pre-heated oven at 500 degrees. "The whole key is to have it hot," notes Raul. "That way the crust puffs and is crunchy. Normally a pizza oven is 700 degrees but we'll just have to do the best we can. There was a guy who was able to achieve 700 degrees by over-riding the latch system on a self-cleaning oven . . ." Drew gets ready to get between Raul and the toolbox but then remembers that this oven is not self-cleaning.

Fourteen minutes later the cheese is bubbling and the crust is golden brown. "It's a bit sweet from the ketchup," remarks Drew. "And the Onion Crunch."

"You can feed it to the dog and run down the street for takeout pizza," replies Raul.

"The dough could not be more perfect," says Drew crunching contentedly.

Pantry Pizza

"What a week," muses Drew. "Heatwave after heatwave, a thunderstorm that turned into a flood, a spectacular gig . . . I'm exhausted. But hungry."

"It's still too hot to cook," notes Raul. "That's why we bbq'ed burgers for lunch. And have been eating the same big, but delicious, batch of pasta fagiole for dinner every night. Comfort food for sure but . . . What do you feel like having?"

"I'm good with pasta fagiole," pipes up Drew with sincere enthusiasm.

"Let's see what we have," says Raul. "We're going north in a few days so I want to empty the fridge and make a dent in the freezer."

Drew walks the dog - despite the threatened round two of the storms - while Raul ponders and pores over the kitchen contents. By the time the duo, return the kitchen is a hive of activity. "Pantry pizza!" enthuses Raul.

A pita bread is split in half lengthwise and coated with a mixture of ketchup and anchovy paste to add a blast of umami. Raul then layers on a thick bed of shredded basil from the balcony garden - all the rain has turned the basil plants into huge leafy bushes - and mozzarella cheese grated in a brief blast in the mini-food processor. He briefly fries thinly sliced chorizo sausage to squeeze out the fat and they places the glistening discs on top. The pizzas are placed in the toaster oven until the cheese starts to bubble. The final touch is a sprinkling - or a smothering in Drew's case - of Onion Crunch which is a really versatile and useful flavouring R&D use frequently in salads or atop soups.

The result is light, delicious, cheap and easy. "Gourmet flavour for a bargain price," enthuses Raul. "Why go to an overpriced pizza place when you can use fresh ingredients, toss it in the toaster oven and it only costs 50 cents? Good taste should not be expensive."

"Well it was delicious," says a happy Drew while he sneaks a nibble of chorizo to the dog.

"It was fun," says Raul. "I like pulling stuff together and the cheese was a breeze with the mini-processor and now that we have the sharp knife I could get the chorizo really thin. Maybe we shouldn't admit that we just used ketchup?"