Friday, June 4, 2010

Our Twizza Pizza Party Night

The very lovely Reindeersp came up with the idea of having a Twitter Pizza Party last night - an idea that was received rapturously by the rest of us Irish Foodies.  She christened it Twizzaparty and we started plotting recipes for the dough and the toppings. 

I must confess that I had NEVER made pizza dough before, but after a very disappointing pizza at my favourite restaurant Pizzas n' Cream (so greasy - eeww...) I figured that learning to DIY could only be a good thing.  I used Reindeersp recipe for dough and decided to make it on the Tuesday night when I was home alone & could make a mess without The Hubs asking me if I had finally gone mad.  This was a great idea in theory but when I was covered  in flour with an itchy nose and nobody to turn on the tap so I could wash my hands, I started regretting this move!!

After kneading and swearing and kneading and swearing for about 20 minutes, the dough was ready & went for a little rest in some ziplock bags.  I decided to make a test pizza there & then so there would be no unpleasant surprises on the night... it was rather good!

So last night, the pizza marathon began - the laptop was relocated to the kitchen table, the camera battery was charged and I started my prep work.  Now I don't have a lot of work space, so the draining board was used as my ingredient storage area - look how neat and tidy I am...


I had enough ingredients & dough to make 3 pizzas so I drew up a little menu - to stop me going off on a tangent and stuck it right in front of me as a reminder



I started off with the Chicken Pizza.  I had poached a chicken breast the night before so it was very moist and shredded beautifully.  I paired this with some asparagus (I gave this 40 secs in the microwave first, just to make sure it par-cooked before it hit the pizza), sweetcorn, feta, red onion, and mozzarella. 

Here's the pizza ready for the oven


All of the pizzas were given a couple of spoonfuls of homemade tomato sauce as their base.  For this I used a carton of crushed tomatoes, half a tube of sundried tomato puree, some fresh thyme from Living Flavour, some salt, sugar & pepper.  This was cooked down until it was thick & syrupy (and delicious!)

Here's the Chicken Pizza ready to be eaten...


Then I went for the Italian Pizza.  This had Parma ham and two types of Italian salami, some garlic marinated mushrooms (all from M&S), taleggio & mozzarella.  This was less of a success to be honest.  The dough didn't stretch as much as I would like, so it was too thick and the toppings were a little heavy - we only ate half of it...

The Italian Pizza ready for the oven


The cooked Italian Pizza



And the final pizza - this was a gourmet take on Pork Onion & Tomato - that horrible processed roll you see in supermarkets that people persist in giving to their kids (why???).  I used sliced roast pork, red onion, beef tomato slices (with the core removed - I'm a bit OCD about that), sliced Portobello mushrooms, fresh basil and mozzarella.

Here's the uncooked Porktastic Pizza  - isn't it pretty?


And here's the final result.  This was absolutely gorgeous - on a par with the Chicken Pizza


And the verdict on this Twizza party?  The Hubs was hugely impressed, appreciative and stufffed!  And even more so when I operated my "clean as you go" policy so there was barely anything for him to wash up...

Huge thanks to Reindeersp for organising the whole event and my fellow Twizzaparty contestants (did I mention that the very lovely ItalianFoodie is judging the pizza efforts?) JoannaSchaff, LikeMamUsedToBake, Gluttony for Beginners, ClareK, DinnerduJour, ICanHasCook, Bibliocook,  

3 comments:

  1. I was going to ask you which one you preferred. Your choice of toppings are excellent... very tasty. So will there be pizza on the menu more often now?

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  2. You've outdone yourself yet again with making not one, not two, but three different pizzas! And I love the Virgo organisation of all your ingredients.

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  3. The pork one just looks soo nyommy. Thank you for honourable mention :)

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