Let the games begin... Week 1

Hi everyone,

So here is my first dish for the 2010 Bronze Spoon Cooking Challenge. To get things off and running I have chosen a dish that I thought was very Italian and typical of the food I want to cook during this challenge. So... I present you with Week 1 - Margherita Pizza, or as the Italian's would say, Pizza Margherita!

Now this just couldn't possibly go wrong. Margarita or Margherita I don't care. I like to drink them, I like to eat them... before I've even started, I'm confident I'm on to a good thing. And yes, for all you smarta@#'s out there, I realise I could have had about 15 pizza's delivered in the time it took me to make one from scratch... but that's not the point is it! Moving right along...

So... to start with I had to make the pizza dough. It seems that this is quite an art, and something that will take some trial and error to perfect. I had to knead the dough and leave it for 3 hours, which seriously interupted my cricket viewing time, but thems the breaks. I also only covered the dough with a teatowel while it was resting, which left it sligthly crusty on top. No biggie, but next time I will cover it with glad wrap or a damp cloth. I'm a gumby remember, and don't know these things. The Silver Spoon is also pretty light on for instructions and details, so what you don't know... you make up as you go along.

Once the dough was ready to go, I simply rolled it out and put some peeled and diced tomatoes on top with some olive oil. This then went in the oven for about 15 minutes. Then I added the mozzarella and basil, added some S&P with a dash of oil and put it back in the oven for 7 minutes. That's it!

The outcome...

Well I thought it was pretty tasty! I think the dough could use some work, but I suspect that will come with experience and time. The flavours were good, but to be honest, I would probably lick tomato, mozzarella and basil off the floor and be happy about it.

That's me done for week 1. Come back next week, same bat time, same bat channel.

S.