MoFo Day Two: We Heart Pizza!

    We were supposed to be going out to meet friends today at Ickworth House- so we made our lunch early to eat before we went.  In the event I didn't go anywhere because Noah, one of our Twitter kittens disappeared for 4 hours today and we absolutely could not find him. We were completely sure he was somewhere in the house, probably asleep, but we couldn't all just go out not knowing where he was, so I stayed at home while the others went out. But before that, we made pizzas!
   Luckily, the staff at Veganation (a.k.a the children) are like a well-oiled machine when it comes to pizza making! I usually make the dough myself- a little over 20 floz warm water, a couple of tsp fast acting yeast, a couple of scant tsp salt, then add about 2 lbs of strong white flour- I don't usually measure it, so it varies slightly! I make all our bread and although I usually use a mixture of spelt and white flour we always make our pizza white, but obviously you can use whatever flour you like.  Mix and then knead the dough until it is elastic-y and smooth and shiny, then divide into approx 8-10 pieces, depending on how thick you like your pizza base. Roll out each piece and shape to line a greased baking sheet, making a couple of small holes in each base to minimise shrinkage.
  Now make the tomato sauce by whizzing up a few fresh tomatoes, some sun dried tomatoes, some tomato puree, a couple of fresh basil leaves, a couple of garlic cloves, a splash of oil and enough water to make it spreadable- according to how thick you like your topping, really! I don't bother leaving the bases any longer than it takes to prepare the toppings, so as soon as I've made the bases I make the tomato sauce and then someone starts spreading while we get the vegan cheese ready. We usually use Cheesly Super Melting, sliced thinly, or Tofutti individual slices of mozzarella (altho' they're a bit overpackaged), torn up into little pieces and scattered over the pizza top. We usually add olives (all Home Educated children ADORE olives!), sliced mushrooms, sometimes some capers, or pieces of nori. We sell nori in our lovely 100% vegan shop VegaNation ( www.veganation.co.uk )- it's really lovely and adds a subtle taste of the sea to any dish. Some of us like a bit of spinach, or a few sultanas, or some caramelised onion relish- tangy! We generally sprinkle generously with oregano and a bit of  black pepper and it's done!
  We find that we can make a double batch of pizzas like this in about an hour- that's everything: making the dough, greasing tins, rolling out bases, making tomato sauce etc etc which I think is pretty good considering you are actually making a freezer meal as well! If you don't have room to freeze any pizzas and you don't think you can manage 8-10 pizzas, then half the quantities! We used to always make 8 and freeze 4 but now we always make some spare pizzas for Molly Farrar, lovely vegan manager of Feline Care cat shelter which has been facing closure if they don't raise £70,000 to buy the shelter outright from the charity which owns it.       They set themselves the mammoth task of raising the money by the end of September, and in fact they have come very close- up to £57,506 yesterday, and are still pushing towards their goal- all in just a few weeks!     They have all worked SO hard and Molly has also been hand rearing kittens, doing night feeds, so like any mother of small infants who is also trying to raise tens of thousands of pounds, while running a cat shelter she is VERY TIRED!! So, whenever we visit the shelter to spend some time with the cats we always take some pizzas for Molly and her partner Paul. If you would like to donate to this worthy cause (the shelter, not the pizzas!), and receive a personal thank you on Facebook from sweet Howard one of the ex-ferals who is working hard to save his home, please visit Feline Care at www.felinecare.org.uk and give what you can! But I digress! What was I talking about? Oh yes, pizzas!

  When the pizzas are all assembled, cook for about 8 minutes at 200*, by which time the cheese should be nicely bubbling.  If you want to freeze some of the pizzas, they are more manageable if you cook them for about 4 minutes, let them cool, cut into slices if you wish, and then freeze. Then, when you want them, just put straight in the oven at 200*, and cook from frozen for about 7-8 minutes, until the cheese bubbles.
  It turned out to be quicker to MAKE ten pizzas than to write about them! My children are finally asleep so I'm going to have a Toffee Apple-flavour Cider (yes, really!) and watch Season Six of Dallas (yes, really!) and relax...