It’s Friday, it’s 7.30pm, it’s PIZZA NIGHT!

Every summer I make vats of tomato sauce for our weekly pizzas on Friday nights. When it’s cooled, I fill the wells in this silicone baking tray with the sauce, freeze it in these patty shaped portions and then on Fridays all I have to do is get out a patty of sauce and it defrosts while the pizza dough is being made. It may seem odd but it’s just a way of taking some of the work out of the cooking. I know it looks like a tray of baby food and it’s not in any way enhanced as an image by the orange silicone but trust me, it works!

These days I have the process off to a fine art – although it takes a long time (about three hours from start to finish), the time when I am actively engaged in preparation is small, maybe only 10-15 minutes. Most of the time is simply waiting for the yeast to do their yeasty stuff and the other chemical interactions to occur. Early on in my degree I did a presentation on the science of bread making – what works with what and how the processes couple together to make bread. It’s fascinating stuff. To be fair, I do have something of an obsession about bread.

Honestly? I’d much rather phone Domino’s and order up a pizza without making it myself but as the nearest Domino’s is more than 20 miles away, it’ll come as no surprise that they won’t deliver to here.

A few things have changed on pizza night. The new old cooker heats to 240⁰C, twenty degrees hotter than the old new cooker so they cook even more quickly – less than ten minutes now compared to fifteen before. I’ve also developed a range of other pizza specials including the sauce trick and I’ve got a lovely bottle of home-made chilli oil for topping off as they come out of the oven. I’ve put a lot of effort into the advancement of my pizza skills with minimum effort.