Time saver: Phil repeats himself, cat still isn’t interested.

My wife’s back, so I told her about this pizza and then tried to impress her by making it. This time around I used home-made pizza dough, and rolled it out to a 12″ base, then scaled the recipe up to fit. I think this size is probably more practical (well, it fed two hungry people, the 9″ base wouldn’t) and the home-made dough gives a much better pizza. I’m planning on writing a post to fill you in on the wonders of five minute artisan bread, but basically, it’s a dough you can make really quickly, then keep in the fridge for when you need it. Unlike most other bread doughs, it requires no kneading whatsoever, you literally pull a lump of dough out of the bowl/container you’re keeping it in, shape it, let it rise a little, then bake it. One of the other wonders of this dough is that you can grab a lump of it, roll it out and use it as a pizza base immediately, and it delivers a great result. That’s what I did this time around. Conveniently awesome.

I took a few photos this time, so you can check out the end result. One small note, we didn’t have any pesto this time around, so I used a few pine nuts instead and I’ve updated the recipe to include those. (I think the pesto is better, but we make do.)

Mushroom, blue cheese and pesto pizza – 12″

• 12″ pizza base (preferably hand-made – I recommend 5 minute artisan bread)
• 3 Tbsp tomato paste
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 clove or ½ tsp crushed garlic
• freshly ground black pepper and salt
• 1-2 c grated cheese (125g is roughly 1 cup when grated) (this time around I used 2 cups, but for a more stylish contemporary pizza you could use less. As before, I used Edam cheese, if you’ve got mozarella by all means use it)
• 125g mushrooms, sliced (could use more if you can fit them on)
• 30-40g blue vein cheese (I used Kapiti Kikorangi if the cheese is not very strong you could use more)
• 3 Tbsp basil pesto or 10g pine nuts

1. Pre-heat oven to 230°C (about 450°F). If you’ve got a pizza stone, use it, otherwise just put one of your trays in to heat.
2. Roll out pizza base to a 12″ circle, then place on a sheet of baking paper.
3. In a small bowl, combine the tomato paste, olive oil and garlic, mix well.
4. Spread tomato paste over pizza base, going right to the edges.
5. Crack some black pepper and salt over the base, then cover with cheese.
6. Spread mushrooms over the cheese – they’ll shrink a lot, so cover the whole thing.
7. Crumble the blue vein over the pizza, distributing in small pieces. If you’re a fan, feel free to use more.
8. With a teaspoon, dollop some basil pesto around in a stylish fashion. Alternatively, sprinkle pine nuts over pizza.
9. Put the pizza in the oven (with baking paper) on your pre-heated tray/pizza stone. Cook for 14 minutes or so, until the base is cooked and the cheese is melted and golden.