In today’s economy and being on a strict budget, I can’t afford to throw anything away, so I’m always on the lookout for new ideas for leftovers other than making curry.
We’ve had a glut of tomatoes again this year and pastas, spaghetti bolognese, lasagne, and chillis have been the norm so for a change, I thought about making pizza.
The following was one of my ‘accidents’ that started out as one thing, went wrong in the middle, but the end result actually looked and tasted OK.
I’m one of these people who apart from sponge cakes, usually don’t weigh anything, but my basic ingredients were :
6 large tomatoes (skinned and chopped)
1 chopped onion
8 peeled and sliced closecup mushrooms
about 100g of grated cheese
dollop of tomato ketchup
handful of sliced mixed peppers
teaspoon Italian herbs
I put the tomatoes and onion in a saucepan and brought them to the boil, adding the ketchup and herbs once hot.
Typically, I had no yeast to make a proper dough base, so improvised with pastry. I make mine with a rough ratio of 1/3 fat to flour (bias towards the flour), the fat being a 50/50 mix of lard and margarine. Rub together, add a pinch of salt and a little hot water, mix until it resembles a stretchy dough, then roll out to about ¼” thickness. I put this in a 10″ square 1″ deep pie dish, making sure it came up along the sides, then baked it ‘blind’ for about 10 minutes until it started to shrink and the edges go brown (it should feel firm to the touch, not raw).
Using half the tomato mix, I spread it over the pastry base, layered the peppers and mushrooms on top, then put the rest of the tomato mix on top of that. I sprinkled the grated cheese over the lot and returned the dish to the oven for about half an hour (175 C, 350F, gas mark 4) until the cheese was completely melted and a golden brown, as were the pastry edges.
When done, it looked a bit like a quiche, and in hindsight it MAY have been an idea to add a beaten egg to bind it all together as the added moisture from the peppers and mushrooms made it a bit of a game to slice and get it out of the dish!
Saying that though, it was jolly nice and I’ll be making it again.
pensitivity101 
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