Vegetarian Pizza

Pizza is just delicious and you can't go past it really. And it's much easier to make it from scratch than you think. As long as you have an hour or so to spare, making the dough yourself is very satisfying. I use Orgran Gluten Free flour.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED: Dough

2 cups Plain Flour (gluten free)

1 tbls or 7g pack dry yeast

1 tsp caster sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbls vegetable or olive oil

3/4 cup hot water

WHAT YOU'LL NEED: Sauce

1 sachet Tomato Past

1 tsp Oregano

1 tsp Basil

1 clove Garlic

WHAT YOU'LL NEED: Topping

This can be anything you like but my favorite topping are the following

1 Tomato

1/2 Onion

1/4 Green Capsicum

1/4 Red Capsicum

1/4 cup Zucchini

4 Mushrooms

Hand full of Spinach Leaves

1 cup Mozzarella cheese

1 cup Cheddar cheese

WHAT YOU'LL DO WITH IT:

First your going to have to give yourself an hour to make the dough. Add Yeast, Salt and Sugar to the water and stir with a fork till combined. Cover with plastic and let sit for 5min in a warm place. You'll know the yeast is ready when bubbles form.

Sift flour into a dry clean bowl, add oil then yeast mix and stir till combined. Knead the dough till it's elastic. Should take about 10min and you'll know it's ready when you pinch the dough and pull lightly without the dough breaking off.

Put into an oiled glass or metal bowl and cover. Put the bowl into a sink filled half way with hot water. Let it rise till it's double the size then knead for a further few minutes then let it rise one more time before kneading for a final time. After the third kneading the dough should be nice and smooth.

Role out and place on a lightly oiled pizza tray and cook in the over for about 5min.

For sauce place Tomato Paste, herbs and garlic into a small bowl and mix to combine then slather it all over the pizza base.

Slice all the vegetables except the Spinach thinly so they cook at the same time.

Now this is the secret to making a perfectly cooked pizza. It's all about how you lay the toppings. First start with half the cheese, then add the onion, then the capsicum. Next add the zucchini and mushrooms then the tomato and spinach. Finish off with the last of the cheese. Make sure you place the toppings on from the outside in turing the base as you go. You do it this way to stop the topping pooling in the centre this way the base and toppings cook evenly with no raw spots.

Cook for about 15 to 20 minutes at 180 degrees.

Wheat Free/Gluten Free Banana Bread

Have to give a shout out to George Williams at InterFM in Tokyo for the inspiration for this one. I was watching him make his Banana "Bread" on ustream.tv the other night. To be perfectly honest his is more of a Banana Cake that would have been so good but I am wheat intolerant so I had to make mine up on the fly. Anyway, you can follow George on Twitter @kungfugeorge or watch his show at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/kungfugeorge if you can understand Japanese.

Now mine IS a Banana Bread. It goes into a baking pan like a bread and it comes out of the oven like a bread. The only difference is that there is no yeast and you can't knead the dough because of the Bananas.

If you're vegan try this with a milk and egg substitute and let me know how it went. I would also recommend eating this one when it is still warm with some margarine spread.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED

2 or 3 Bananas

1 3/4 cup wheat free self raising flour

1/4 cup wheat free plain flour

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp Almond meal

1 tsp Hazelnut meal

2 eggs lightly beaten

1/2 cup milk

2 tsp Cinnamon

50g of Margarine

1 Vanilla Pod

WHAT YOU'LL DO WITH IT

Pre heat the oven to 180 degrees and used either margarine or canola spray to grease the pan.

In a large bowl sift the flour and cinnamon then add the sugar, almond meal and hazelnut meal and stir them together. Make a well in the flour mix and set to one side.

Open the vanilla pod and scrap out the inside into a saucepan. Drop the empty pod in and then add the butter and let it melt slowly over a low heat. Stir it now and then to make sure the vanilla seeds are mixed in.

Mash the bananas with a fork into an empty bowl. Add the eggs and milk and the melted butter then mix together. Make sure you remove the Vanilla pod as it will not be a pleasant experience bitting into it later.

Pour the banana mixture into the flour bowl then mix together with a wooden spoon until the two are combined then put it into the baking dish and bake for 45 to 50 min.

Chocolate Rice Pudding

I love rice pudding, I have always loved rice pudding ever since I was a kid and my mum makes the best rice pudding in the world so of course I had to use her recipe. Then one day I was thinking, how can I make rice pudding even better? It can't be possible can it? Then at that moment I looked up into my cupboard and saw a shinning beacon in the shape of a tin, a tin of cooking coco.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED:
Arborio/Risotto rice
Two tea spoons of brown sugar
one tea spoon cooking Coco
half tea spoon cinnamon
half tea spoon nutmeg
Water
Milk
Margarine

WHAT YOU'LL DO WITH THEM:
First melt a good table spoon of margarine into a pot and add the rice. Stir through till the rice becomes shinny.

Add enough water to just cover the rice. Stir until soaked in.

Add Sugar, coco, nutmeg and cinnamon and stir quickly then add some more water to cover and stir till soaked in.

At this point check to make sure the rice is almost cooked through. If the rice is still crunch add a little more water and check again.

Add milk (about a cup at a time) mixing in until soaked up. You'll do this only twice but if you want the pudding to be extra creamy you can add a cup of cream instead of the second cup of milk or add an extra cup.

Serve in a BIG bowl because you worked hard and need the deliciousness (or you can share with another person who didn't lift a finger to make it and there for are unworthy of the deliciousness).

If you're vegan try replacing the milk with a nut milk and let me know how it went.