Gourmet Pizzas

Making pizzas at home is one of my favourite things to do as a group. If there are a few of you, you can club together to afford decent ingredients and at a fraction of the cost of a takeaway or restaurant pizza. It's also a lot healthier than eating out as you know exactly what's going into every component of the dish.

The most rewarding part is making the dough. Don't skip this, it's fun and will really add that authentic Italian touch to the pizza! This recipe comes from an Italian cookbook, so it's pretty legit:

Pizza Dough
- 15g packet dry active yeast
- 250ml lukewarm water
- pinch of sugar
- tsp salt
- 350-400g strong white bread flour

Place the yeast and lukewarm water in a mixing bowl, stir in the sugar with a fork and let stand for about 7 mins, til the yeast has dispersed and started to foam. Spoon in the salt and 1/3 of the flour until it becomes dough-like and starts to peal away from the sides of the bowl. Sprinkle some of the flour onto a clean work surface and knead for around 10 mins, working in the remaining flour bit by bit. This dough cannot be overworked, so it's a good idea to let everyone have a go at the kneading part. It can be quite fun to relieve any underlying anger by violently punching the dough, picking it up and throwing it at the counter.

When the dough is elastic and smooth, form into a ball and place into a lightly oiled mixing bowl, drape a moist cloth over the top and leave to rise for about an hour in a warm place. I sometimes heat the oven then turn it off and leave it in there, or quickly turn all the hobs on high for a minute then turn off and leave on there. You don't want the dough to start cooking to careful that the place is not too hot. To test if the dough is proved, poke fingers into it and if the indentations remain, it's ready. Stretch the dough as thinly as possible into 4 pizza shapes, and ease into a clean roasting tin. The bases are now ready to be topped.

Every pizza should be topped with a simple passata base, this can be shop bought but just as easily home made with a few pantry staples - you might as well make everything from scratch!

Passata
- tin of tomatoes
- tbsp tomato puree
- garlic
- 1 onion
- drop of tabasco
- drop of balsamic vinegar
- spoonful of sugar
- salt & black pepper

Finely chop the onion and fry with the garlic, add everything to a blender and zizz, bring to the boil in a large saucepan and simmer for 10-15 mins til you have a delicious passata.

Now you have the base, let your imagination run wild! Experiment with weird and wonderful topping combinations, you may come across a taste sensation. Or, if your creative juices aren't yet flowing, have a gander at the tantalizing flavours my house devised and devoured.

In reverse order, saving best for last.

4. The Stuff We Had Left Over
A mish-mash pizza consisting of a few sliced peppers, onion, olives and fresh mozzerella topped with basil leaves.

3.Everything Is Better With An Egg On Top
Vine tomatoes, spinach & ricotta pesto blobs, fresh mozzerella, and a cracked egg.

2.Funghi Fish
Anchovy base with sliced & fried garlic mushrooms, fresh mozzerella and basil leaves.

1.Heaven On A Plate
Caramelised onions, goats' cheese and fresh mozzerella.

Extra tips:

- fry mushrooms in a little butter and garlic before they go on the pizza.

- to caramelise onions, cook slowly in butter for around 5 mins, add sugar and a small shot glass of brewed coffee, then reduce for around 7 mins til dark and sticky. It's almost like a chutney which is why the coffee works, but make sure there is enough sugar to balance the bitter flavour.

- It's worth spending a few extra pennies on good quality mozzerella, I find basics stuff a bit rubbery and tasteless.

- If in the oven (on about 200) the toppings are done but not the bottom, you can slide the whole pizza base-down into a frying pan to crisp it up.

Serve with fresh & vibrant salad to keep it healthy

Please let me know what interesting topping combinations you come up with!

Student Bonding: the way to anyone's heart is through their stomach.

Moving into a flat full of strangers can be daunting, especially in the first few days of settling in. Speed past this awkward phase by getting to know each other through the wonderful medium of food.

When I started studying at Manchester last year, I suggested to my flat that for the first week we take it in turns to cook for each other. Each of us picked a day and got quite excited about what we were going to make. I was lucky enough to live with quite a few international students which meant that I got to try lots of things I'd never even heard of, including Chinese baked eggs and frogs' legs. I wasn't too sure about the frogs' legs but I believe that you never know until you try!

I have loved cooking since I can remember, so I wasn't too nervous about this idea, but serving up food for a reasonably large number of people wasn't something I had really done before. I can imagine this being daunting for those who are not used to cooking regularly, but it doesn't need to be. If you stick with something simple you can't really go wrong. It's not Masterchef. It's not even Come Dine With Me—the main thing about this meal time is to spark some interesting conversation with your new flatmates, and if the food tastes great then it's a bonus. (And they'll probably like you even more.)

At this point you probably don't know everyone's tastes and preferences, so it's best to go with something simple and easy. Be sure to ask about people's dietary requirements such as vegetarian, gluten-free or vegan diets. Here's an idea to get you started:

Tortilla stack.

This is what I made in my first week, adapted from something I found on a Sainsbury's recipe card. It's cheap, delicious and suitable for vegetarians. I love this recipe because it's highly adaptable and by no means needs to be followed to the letter.

Ingredients:

Pack of 8 soft tortilla wraps (white or wholemeal)

Tin of mixed beans (kidney, borlotti, cannellini etc)

Tin of chopped tomatoes

Tin of sweetcorn

100ml vegetable stock

1 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic (or 1tsp jarred minced garlic)

1 tsp chilli powder

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tbsp ground coriander

Black pepper

100g cheese (any, but mozzarella or grated cheddar works well)

Optional: approx 6 cherry tomatoes for decoration

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 200ºC, add the oil to a saucepan and fry the onions for approximately 5 minutes, until soft. Stir through the spices and garlic and cook for a further minute. Pour in the stock, beans and tinned tomatoes, and let simmer for around 10 minutes until the stock has reduced. Add the sweetcorn and prepare a round cake tin with a tortilla wrap. Spoon ¼ of the bean mixture onto the wrap, and grate around 20g of the cheese on top. Repeat 3 times using up all of the ingredients, and finish with a layer of cheese. If using, dot with cherry tomatoes in pattern of your choice. Bake for 25 minutes.

To serve, slice into wedges and plate up with fresh salad. This should make enough for around 5 people, but the recipe can easily be doubled for more.

Tips/suggestions:

• use any beans/pulses you have in, e.g chickpeas, black beans, even baked beans;
• mix it up by trying different spices - it's a good idea to club together when buying spices as you'll have more of a range and it's a great way to flavour food for less;
• a layer of spinach and ricotta between each section of beans is a good way to balance the stack, making it look prettier and offsetting the spice if you have used too much.

This is a reasonably easy recipe that should be accessible to all, but if you're struggling don't be afraid to ask another flatmate/whoever you may be cooking for for help! They'll probably be pleased with the chance to get involved, and if it all goes wrong you can laugh about it later. This is one part of uni where you're not getting graded. Enjoy!

See this recipe in print in The Mancunion, Issue 1.

Late night chocolate experiments

It often gets to that point in the night, not long after dinner, that I get an unstoppable craving for something sweet and deliciously unhealthy. Unstoppable, that is, without satisfying it.

Tonight I was in the mood for a thick, Spanish/Italian/Belgian style hot chocolate. Instant powder and boiling water did not fit the bill, so I threw together what cocoa products were around and success! A rich, thick, indulgent night time drink good enough to coat a hot sugary churro. 

I thought I'd write the combination down so that others may enjoy too, or at least I can refer back to this post to recreate:

• 2 squares bourneville
• 2 squares lindt caramel
• 2 ts green & black's chocolate powder
• 2 ts tesco's finest salted caramel chocolate flakes
• 1/4 t ground cinnamon
• mug of skimmed milk

Put all of the above ingredients into a small saucepan on low, whisk until smooth and chocolate is dissolved into milk. Heat to just below boiling, pour into mug and wait for 15 mins for the flavours to infuse. (This is the hard part). Mine developed a skin, which in my opinion is the sign of a good hot chocolate. Enjoy alone or with a traditional European questionably-shaped hot donut. Or with a questionably shaped hot European. Whatever's available. 

Note: this is not a recipe to be followed religiously - despite how tasty it is - just throw what chocolate you have into a saucepan with milk and whisk. But I will say: the darker the chocolate, the richer the taste. 

The perfect rocky road bars

Firstly, welcome to post number 1 of EllieFood! I tried to design a pretty header and customize everything but my technological expertise failed me. If anyone is good with this kind of stuff I'd really appreciate any help, but for now we have to make to with this simple design - if I faffed around for any longer trying to make it look all fancy I don't think there'd be a new post til I've finished uni.

Here's the pic I tried to use just to prove my efforts:

Anyway - the bars.

As probably one of the easiest sweet treats to make, rocky road bars are my fail-safe party showstopper. The basic recipe is to grab everything unhealthy, smash it all to bits, cover it with gooey melted chocolate and refrigerate.

However, if you're going to make something so easy that it doesn't even really count as baking, you might as well make it perfect.

I made this batch to serve at a 40th wedding anniversary, and I think it's my best one yet.

This time I used:

200g Galaxy

100g Bourneville

100g Dairy Milk whole nut

70g butter

2 Ts golden syrup

150g chopped marshmallows (I used scissors but small ones work too)

Pack of hobnobs

Almost a box of maltesers

100g chopped wonka's millionaire shortbread (had it in, use choc chips/other chopped choc or omit)

75g mixed dried fruit

Construction:

Melt chocolate, butter and syrup in a saucepan on low til runny and smooth. Separately, crush the biscuits - I do this by whacking the full packet on the sides of a large bowl til it bursts, then jabbing at the crumbs with a rolling pin - add all the other  dry ingredients, mix, cover with the cooled chocolate. Press into a greased and lined rectangular tin. I think this made about 24 large ones, which Mum then halved again because my portion sizes are greedy.If you want to make it look a bit more special you can dust with icing sugar, but I don't bother, I think there's already enough sugar in these mini heart attacks.

This recipe is just a combination of everything I had in, so be creative - add different nuts, fruit, cereal maybe? Granola would probably work. Most of all, ENJOY RESPONSIBLY.

Let me know if you have a recipe that rivals this one.