Chicken Sausage Pizza & Pesto Pizza

You know, I take my hats off for all full-time home-maker in the whole wide world.  Especially when you have school going children and you've got to prepare at least 3 main meals a day (not forgetting in between snacks), it's a wonder all mothers didn't go bald! I mean, going bald not because of the $ involve in feeding the family, rather the menu for each day! 

I'm a working mother and even on weekends, I'm at a lost on what to cook.  Don't even bother to ask the family on what they want as they would always say 'anything la'.  In the end, I would tell them, 'ok, since anything goes, I cook whatever and no complaints'. 

Since I've been staying home a lot for the past month due to some family 'crisis', I've been cooking a lot lately and I do mean a lot!. So, one of the days to entertain my children taste buds, I decided to make them pizza..yup! Their favorite.  

I saw on the Food Channel the other day where this chef gave a useful tip when making pizza.  He said that to make a good tasty pizza is not to have more than 2 or 3 ingredients as your topping not counting the cheese.  Otherwise, you will only taste the topping and not the pizza as a whole.  So, with that tips in mind, I made the Chicken Sausage Pizza for my children and Pesto Pizza for my hubby and I.  My children doesn't like pesto, so with these two types of toppings, everyone is happy!

In my many, many, many recipe books that I have, this is the simplest, quickest and very nice pizza dough.

Here's how it's made:

(this recipe makes 1 large pizza. I triple it to satisfy my family's cravings for pizza)

250g 'oo' or strong white bread flour, plus extra for sprinkling

1/2 tsp table salt

7g sachet easy-blend dried yeast

2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to coat

125ml tepid water

1. Put the flour, salt and yeast in a large bowl and mix. Make a well in the centre, add the oil and water and gradually work in the flour to make a soft dough. Sprinkle over a little flour if the mixture feels too sticky but make sure it's not too dry either; the dough should be pliable and smooth.

2. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface, knead for 10 mins, sprinkling with a little more flour when needed, until the dough is smooth and stretchy.

3. Rub some oil over the surface of the dough and return the dough to the bowl. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave for about 1 hour until the dough has doubled in size.

4. Remove the dough to a lightly floured surface and knead for 2 mins until the excess air is knocked out. Rolled out the dough according to the recipe you are following.

Pizza sauce: I'm a bit lazy this time to make it from scratch, so I used spaghetti sauce in a can (try to use the original or mushroom ones)

Toppings:

1. Chicken Sausage Pizza - Spread pizza sauce, top with chicken sausages cut into slices, slices of button mushrooms, cheddar cheese and mozzarella cheese.  (Remember the tips: keep to the minimal).

2. Pesto topping - for the pesto, blend together sweet basil leaf, pine nuts (optional), salt, pepper and olive oil, into a smooth paste.  Spread pesto on pizza dough and arrange slices of fresh tomatoes. Sprinkle cheddar and mozzarella cheese.

Bake pizza in a pre-heated oven at 190dC for about 15 mins-20 mins or until cheese is melted.

 Pesto Pizza

 Chicken Sausage Pizza

The Chef was right! It was delicious with only a few ingredients as the topping.  Even my neighbour's kid said that it's good...she came over at the right time - dinner time! :)