The sweet smell of sileage, and baking

Sunday night pizzas

2 tsp dried yeast
1 tsp sugar
4 tbsp warm water
2 cups flour

Topping suggestions
Roasted tomato sauce (recipe below), mozzarella, parmesan, ricotta, basil, cherry tomatoes, prosciuttio, beetroot, thyme and olive oil

Mix the yeast, sugar and water together in a small bowl and set aside for 10 minutes. Place the flour in a lage bowl, add salt to taste and make a well in the centre. Pour the yeast mixture in and bring the whole lot together. Knead by hand or in a mixer with a dough hook for about five minutes or until the dough becomes smooth and elastic. Divide dough into four balls, cover and leave to rest on a lightly floured surface.

Preheat oven to 200C and place a baking tray on the middle shelf. Roll out the dough, until you have a thin circle and place this on a piece of baking paper. Then top with any of the above and slide onto the preheated tray to cook for about 10 minutes.

Tonight we made three different pizzas; a very plain option of just tomato sauce, ricotta and mozzarella, then another one with cherry tomatoes, parmesan, garlic and olive oil and the final pizza starred one golden beetroot bulb, very thinly sliced (thank you mandolin) and scattered on the pizza with some lemon thyme, garlic and olive oil. The result was a beautifully sweet pizza that will definitely become a regular in our Sunday night line up.

Roasted tomato sauce

This is an absolutely beautiful sauce and a great way to use up excess tomatoes. It adds a great depth of flavour to pizza, pasta and heaps more recipes, like lasagna and baked meatballs. Makes about 1 litre.

1 kg nice, ripe tomatoes, quartered
3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 red onion, peeled and quartered
Olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 140C and combine all ingredients in a large oven-proof tray. Place in the oven and cook gently for one hour. Blitz with a stick blender or food processor and seal in a jar or container before storing in the fridge.

Blueberry and lime tart

The idea for this recipe comes from New Zealand cookbook; A Year’s Worth. This book is a constant friend and I often turn to it for new ideas, or just a nice read. 

1 quantity of shortcrust pastry
80g butter, melted
Juice and zest of 5 limes

3 eggs
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 cup blueberries
1 egg white, to brush the pastry
Icing sugar (to dust)

Line a pie tin with the pastry and preheat the oven to 180C. Place the lined tin the fridge to rest for a little while and wrap extra pastry in plastic before returning that to the fridge too. Blind bake for 10 minutes and then make the filling. To do this, whisk the eggs, sugar, lime juice and zest and butter together until well combined.

If you’d like to decorate the pie’s crust as above; just roll out the remaining pastry and, using a small heart shaped biscuit cutter, cut out about 10 small hearts. Slice these in half, down the middle and arrange in a pretty pattern around the edge of the pie tin. Brush with the egg whites and sprinkle with a little extra caster sugar before carefully pouring in the lime mixture.

Bake for 15 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.