Lahmacun (Λαχματζούν)

To feed a family frugally with healthy frugal home cooking, you need to keep them excited and surprised by what they see coming out of the oven or the pot. The food has to look enticing and different - it may be made with the same ingredients, but it must look enticing and different.

I had some leftover pizza pastry from our last pizza making session a couple of nights ago where we'd made pizza and peinirli (boat-shaped baked sandwiches), but now it's time to get back to tackling the garden spinach before it starts to warm up. I made some spanakopita filling which I turned into vegetarian peinirli.

The main meal for the next day was makaronada (Greek-style spaghetti bolognaise). This gave me an idea for another pizza-based meal: Turkish lahmacun, the Middle Eastern equivalent of pizza. The chef at MAICh makes this on a rotating basis for the staff and student lunch, with both a vegetarian and meat version offered for students to choose.

Lahmacun is usually made with an egg-based pastry topped with a spicy mince sauce. Our Middle eastern students often roll it up a bit like souvlaki after having stuffed it with some salad and yoghurt sauce. So it's a very versatile kind of pie. I spread some of my home-made tomato sauce on teh pastry before spreading the mince sauce. The topping sticks to the pastry and does not break or roll off the pastry.

The spanalopita peinirli and lahmacun were all cooked together. The lahmacun was brushed with olive oil while the peinirli got an egg wash, a bit like a spanakopita, topped with some seasame seed. To check if they have been cooked, I simply turned the pastry over to see if the bottom of the pies had browned. They don't need a long cooking time - about 25 minutes in a hot oven.

We are eating delicious food made with similar ingredients on a daily basis, but no one seems to notice when you use the same ingredients in a unique way every time.

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Penirli (Πενερλί)

Cold colours (no flash)

Hot colours (with flash)

Last weekend, we took a stroll around the Venetian harbour. Strolling as a family is something we won't be doing for a long time in the future. The kids are getting older and they won't want to be strolling with their parents for long. The Venetian port is an amazing place to stroll, and you can also have a cheap drink or a bite to eat if you know where to go, or even just by studying the menu cards outside the many eateries that line the promenade. Ideally, you don't need to eat or drink anything; the scenery is more than enough to keep your senses satiated. But we have kids, and kids need to be entertained, which comes at a cost, so that they can remember some good times with their parents.

Pikilia is like eating souvlaki on a platter instead of a sandwich. With drinks, this came to €20 shared out among the four of us.

The original plan was to promenade around the old town, then go and have a cheap souvlaki  at a stand-up souvlatzidiko in the new town. We kept bumping into my husband's old friends and chums - at 57 years of age, having lived here all his life and working as a taxi driver, it is understandable that he will know a lot of people in the area. He says he is really tired of coming across the same people all the time, and he wishes that he could escape with me to New Zealand so he can live somewhere new for a change. I'm so glad he's 57; it's my excuse for not leaving.

All this stopping here and there worked up his rather young offspring's appetite. Rather reluctantly, their dad allowed them to stop off at a souvlatzidiko close to the entrance of the old port (what is sometimes called the 'alisithes', meaning the chains because the area is sometimes chained off so that traffic can't pass through the square), across from the fountain (known as the 'santrivani' - a fountain had always been there from former times). We knew it would be more expensive here at this sit-down place than the stand-up place - and why pay more when you can pay less for the same thing?

Menu cards were brought to us, although, as frugal folks that we are, we knew what we were going to order. But looking at a menu card is fun, except of course that it gives you other ideas about what you might like to eat. My son noticed that pizza was on the menu, so he asked for that, to which he got a flat negative response from his dad. He was very upset as he hadn't had pizza in ages. This is my fault, I suppose. I have made a lot of spinach pies in the last month, because we have a lot of spinach in the garden; if we grew ham and cheese, I'm sure I'd be making pizza instead.

My pizza dough: mix 2/3 cup water, 3 tbsp olive oil, a 6-7g sachet of yeast and a pinch of salt. Add about 500g flour to make a pliable dough. Knead it just enough to blend everything together and leave it to rise, preferably overnight, before using the next day. 

I decided to make up for this to him, by telling him that he could make pizza during the week. On one condition: he would have to get involved in making it. He has perfected his carbonara-making skills to a high degree, so much to the point that he now does not need a recipe. But for young children, pizza making poses a small problem - unlike carbonara, it needs preparation in advance. If you don't make your own pizza dough, then you may as well buy a ready-made pizza - the secret to pizza is in the dough, not the toppings. He agreed to this condition, so last night, I showed him how to make a simple yeast-based pizza dough. I told him that we would leave it covered with a tea towel in a ceramic bowl so it can rise overnight and we can use it the next day when we came back home from school and work.

The next morning, he took a peek at the dough. "Don't beat it down!" I warned him as I noticed that he was ready to poke his finger into it. From his face, I could tell that he was in awe of the chemical process that had taken palce effortlessly. When we were all home, he oculdn't wait to get stuck into a pizza making session.

I gave him a ball of dough and he began to flatten it (a bit too much, in my opinion). His sister came to join him, and she did the same thing. I still use my mother's old pizza tins with holes at the bottom, for the dough to cook to a crispy texture. (Glad I have two of them - they will inherit one each). They each topped them with their favorite flavours: my son likes tomato (home made sauce), ham and cheese; my daughter adds onions and peppers.

Kids' food

In the meantime, I had some dough left over. I really did not want to make another pizza. I had the urge to do something more creative. I decided to make a peinirli assortment. Peinirli is something like a cross between a baked sandwich and a boat-shaped pizza. You can read about its origins here (apparently, peinirli needs a lot of butter, but Iam making them according to own whims). I managed to sneak them into the oven before the pizzas and they were ready in very little time: about 25 minutes in a moderate oven.

After shaping the dough into ovals, I then filled them in different ways. To make the boat shape, fold each long side over the filling, leaving it open in the centre. Then twist the ends. Only the egg was broken into the pastry cavity last of all. All the other fillings were placed before folding the pastry.  

Peinirli flavours: Bacon and egg, Greek salad, Ham and Cheese.
I think I'll do a souvlaki flavoured one next time.

During this time, the kids had finished creating their pizzas. I took out the peinirli and broke off bits of the crust to let them try it. Again, it pays to watch their faces when their taste sensations begin to take effect. "Mmmm, that is the best pizza I've ever tried!" They were both amazed by the superior taste of the pizza crust. I put their pizzas in to cook. They kept checking them and wondered imaptiently when they would be ready.

A close up of my Greek salad peinirli; home made tomato sauce, peppers, onions, feta cheese and olives. These were baked on an oiled baking tray.

"And it really didn't take long to make, did it?" I reminded them.

Now, they have to make pizza often enough to get the hang of it, and learn to make it without using a recipe. That's the only way to learn how to cook: to get stuck into it, and to develop some idea about how to cook. Recipes won't ever provide the perfect meal: you need to learn how to cook, not just follow a recipe.

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Computer lessons (Μαθήματα Η/Υ)

About a month ago, my workplace decided to offer the staff a subsidised computer training course - you are paid for attending lessons. It meant staying at work for a few hours after you finish, something very few working wives and mothers really want at a time in their lives when they are already too busy. I was roped into taking part because the minimum attendance number had not been reached. The five 3-4 hour-long lessons are now keeping me at work until 7-8pm on the days that the course runs.

My evening work at MAICh gave me a glimpse of the evening meals enjoyed by the students: soup is always on the menu, followed by meat or fish, with at least one carbohydrate, and the ubiquitous salad and fruit.

Kitchen and ground staff, as well as some of the younger members of the administration staff, were all taking part. They are generally people who do not spend all their time sitting at a desk with a computer on it. I wondered what I really needed to learn about computers that I didn't already know. In the first lesson, I thought the answer to that was 'nothing': one of the first things we did was to 'learn' how to turn a computer on, and then we learnt that the Windows screen kept the same things on it that our office desk would have, were we not to be using computers. OK, I thought, as I silently read 'other material from my secret cache.

 


  The family still have to eat: I prepared the dough, and some instructions on how to cook a pizza.

The next day, I realised I had lost a memory stick where I kept some files I was working on at the time. Luckily for me, I did have back up copies of my work, but admittedly, like all people, we are sometimes lax about things like that, and my files weren't completely up to date in terms of back up. I fretted a little. Maybe that's why I need computer lessons, I thought.

The second lesson proved much more exciting - the very well informed info-tech instructor advised us about how we can jaz up our WORD files. WORD is a program I use regularly, and if I had time, I could make all those graphics discoveries that I learnt about in the lesson all by myself. But time is of the essence and I don;t have time to much around on such things. After the lesson, I went home to download some files that I had sent to myself through my workplace's intranet. Alas, I was to discover that the internet wasn't working.

 I specifically reminded them to take photos for me.

What to do now? I fretted, much more than the last time. I had lost the memory stick, the internet wasn't working, so I was now stuck. The next day, I noticed there was still no internet at home. I went into work early, frantically downloaded/uploaded/saved whatever I could onto a new memory stick. It was then that I noticed the black memory stick, wedged between the computer tower and a black file box. I still had time to write a little post about how my kids had their first no-adult-supervision cooking session while I was away. To my horrors, Blogger did not seem to be working. I gave up and got on with 'real' work.

I was pleased to see that the house hadn't burnt down when I arrived back home, and I was equally pleased to see the results. The kids have seen me roll out filo pastry dough, so perhaps this is why they made a mistake with the pizza dough -they were trying to roll it out too thinly. But if they hadn't made this mistake yesterday, they wouldn't be better pizza makers today. I called their pizza creation 'omelette pizza' because it turned out to be much easier to eat it folded up.

So here I am back at home. I've backed up my file register, the internet is now working, but I found I still couldn't write anything on Blogger. I did a quick internet check, although I admit that it took me a while to find an appropriate search string to give me the information I wanted: for instance, 'blogger down' led me to some entries about similar problems that took place over a year ago. The best one was 'can't (WITH the apostrophe, take note!) write a new post blogger', where the latest entry had appeared only half an hour ago. The 'best answer' to the question had already been posted: 'turn off draft blogger'. And sure enough, it worked.

Despite being too tired to do much, I still found the time to show the kids how it 'should' be done.  Life doesn't get much better than this in our tiny small quiet part of the world.

Next week, we'll be focussing on Excel. Powerpoint will follow, and the last computer course session will be based on the use of the internet. I clearly have a lot more to learn than I thought. There will always be something for everyone to learn, no matter how long they've been using a computer for.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Λιτλ Σίζερ (Pizza pasta espresso bar)

Despite the economic crisis, a number of new businesses are opening in Hania. The ones that I notice more, maybe due to my interests, are those focussed on food. As we passed a new pizza-pasta-espresso bar (as the store describes itself), my kids, tempted by the aromas, asked me if they could have some pizza here.

I generally keep away from pizzerias because I've never found one that can mae a tasty pizza crust that isn't soggy, or too thick. The thin ones disintegrate too quickly, the thick ones leave you feeling stuffed; sometimes they aren't cooked crispy enough, other times the sauce has made the crust go soggy.

I hadn't ordered any pizza for myself, preferring a cappuccino instead. But when the pizza came to our table - served delectably on square wooden plates - the first thing I noticed was the crust. It looked quite good. Even the children remarked on how good the pizza was. They didn't pin point what they liked about it - the toppings didn't taste any different to when we have a take-out pizza, which isn't very often. I think they must have liked the crust. At one point, they even made a point of insisting that their father should try this pizza, which I think was a good idea, as he is a fussy crust kind of person.

I have to say that the cappuccino was good too, which, in my humble opinion, it generally isn't in Hania (I am a fussy cafe-coffee kind of person). I also studied the bill - €5.60 for the lot. I think that's a pretty good price for a once-in-a-while treat. The cappuccino was also the cheapest I have ever come across anywhere - €1.20 - and what's more, it was very good coffee. 

Dad is hard to rope in for a pizza night out, and I can't blame him when I told him where the pizza bar is located. Apokoronou St is very noisy and dusty; during the day, you can't sit at one of the many cafes in the area without noticing this. I found the pizzeria's phone number on the internet, and found that they do indeed do take-out pizza. They allowed me to order it, but we had to pick it up ourselves, as we were outside their delivery zone. The pizza was still cooking when we arrived to pick it up. 

A good test for take-out pizza is whether the pizza survives intact after being knocked about during the driving process. Usually, it doesn't, but this one passed the test with a very high grade. And the crust was still perfect. 

A look at their advertising leaflet will make you understand why I'm not mentioning the name of the business. I've heard how not-really-very-good that brand of pizza can be in the US, but that's the whole point of not using the name: this pizza looks way better than anything you'll get from them in the US. So why bother ruining their reputation? The one in Hania really does serve very good pizza, even if it goes by the name of the big US chain. NB: the box wrapping is generic (no mention of the little emperor). 

To be honest, I had no idea that there was such a pizza brand as the one using the Roman emperor's name, possibly because I have never had any reason to use thier delivery services. Once the US chain restaurant was pointed out to me by a facebook reader, I was then able to understand why the pizza parlour that delivered the pizzas in Home Alone was called Little Nero's...

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Tomato tart (Τάρτα ντομάτας)

This year (as opposed to last year, but very much like the year before last), we were blessed with a bountiful tomato crop. Tomato is one of the most important plant foods in my kitchen, because tomato sauces form a large base of the main meals that I cook. People who eat a fresh Cretan tomato for the first time in their life often say that they have never eaten a tomato so tasty or aromatic ever before. It's this freshness, grown on Cretan soil, that makes my food so tasty. If I cooked the same recipes elsewhere, where I had to buy tomatoes, I'm sure the meal wouldn't bear any resemblance to what I cook at home.

A quick look on the web revealed a range of tomato tart/pie recipes: a range of different crusts were used, as well as a range of different types of tomatoes. They all looked delicious and particular colourful, since some bloggers used a range of green, red, orange and yellow tomatoes in their pies. Tomato pairs well with cheese: some of the recipes included cheese, while others were vegan, making this pie very versatile. A bit of greenery (eg finely chopped basil, parsley, capers or purslane) really suits this kind of pie, not only for the colour contrast, but also to add a bit of zing to the tomato taste.

I preserve tomatoes in a range of ways: bottled with spices, frozen (with liquids drained), hollowed into shells (for yemista), and sliced (ready for pizzas/pies).

It's not too late for a tomato recipe in early autumn. Tomatoes are planted in Crete out in the open from April until August and keep growing until Christmas. They make great preserves and are the most versatile plant-based food in Greek cuisine. I chose to make a simple tomato pizza pie using my regular pizza base.

You need:
a dose of ladenia pizza dough
about 10 firm plum tomatoes (garden-fresh tomatoes
50-100g of cheese (optional)
olive oil
salt and oregano



Make the ladenia pizza dough according to the instructions. After allowing the dough to rise, spread it onto a baking tin. Slice the tomatoes thickly (about 0.5cm thick). Lay them tightly side by side over the dough base. Drizzle some olive oil over them, then sprinkle with salt and oregano. If using the cheese, sprinkle it over the tomatoes - it really doesn't need very much, just for the taste. Cook the tomato tart for as long as the dough needs cooking - about half an hour in a moderate-hot oven.\

This tomato tart is so simple in taste; it's better than bread, and goes with any salad. A glass of good white wine to go with it, and you will think you are eating with the gods.

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Other people's foods: Delicious snacks (Μικροφαγητά)

I was making my regular once-a-week pizza installment which inspired me to make a delicious snack with some of the leftover dough. This moreish finger food can also be tailor-made for everyone's tastes. I found the basic recipe from Maya who lives in the beautiful Ljubljana of Slovenia. She cooks like a pro and is very creative food-wise. Her recipes look mouth-watering: check them out for yourself.

Maya uses a bread dough to make these 'bocconcini', as Maya calls them. I used Laurie's basic ladenia pizza dough and filled the cookie-size rounds with:

1. spinach kalitsounia mixture
   
2. Alaskan salmon using Maya's basic recipe (replacing sour cream with Greek strained yoghurt)
3. cheese and salami
   

I lost count of how many I ate, just like when I eat crisps. They went like hotcakes.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Eggplant pizza (Μελιτζανόπιτσα)

Not all the family liked eggplant. Some of us like it in traditional Greek dishes like papoutsakia or moussaka, others like it with stuffed rice in yemista, while some don't like it at all. I love roasted eggplant. We recently barbecued aubergine slices at a beach party, and I've been hooked on grilled oiled aubergine ever since.

Although the summer garden is not as proliferate as it was a month ago, eggplant and pepper bushes seem to be the most tolerant to cooler weather, and they are still doing very well at this time of year, even though we were recently drenched in sunless rainy weather.

(Swallows making their way in the rain to warmer climates)

We've pickled the excess banana peppers in vinegar (with a topping of salt before the jar is sealed), but the aubergines are causing me strife. Last night, when I realised I could fit nothing else in the fridge, I cut the big round variety into thick slices, laid them in a baking tin, drizzled olive oil all over them, and threw them into the oven, in the hope that, when they came out of the oven, I will have decided on how to cook them. The result was aubergine pizza.

You need:
4 large round eggplants
2 large tomatoes
2 large onions
2 large green bell peppers
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil for drizzling
grated cheese (optional)

Slice the aubergine thickly, lay out on a baking tin (it doesn't matter if one slice is partly covering another one), drizzle olive oil all over them and place them in a moderate oven until they have taken on a golden cooked colour. Turn them over carefully so that they don't break up and do the same for the other side. They will need more olive oil, as aubergine soaks it up quickly (the same thing happens when they are fried).

Once they are cooked on both sides, layer them in such a way that they cover the whole tin, placing some on top of each other to plug gaps. The base of the tin will now be covered in the same way that a piece of pizza dough covers the base of a tin. Chop the onions into thin slices and spread them all over the aubergines. Do the same with the peppers. Season everything with salt and pepper. Now grate the tomatoes all over the vegetables. Sprinkle the grated cheese all over the tin. (I didn't add the grated cheese until the end of the cooking time for the 'pizza'; for a vegan/lenten option, this can be omitted entirely). Cook in a moderate oven until all the vegetables are cooked (no more than half an hour).



This is a fantastic way to serve aubergine, especially when accompanied by roast meat, which we usually cook on for the Sunday lunch.

And if you want to make this in the winter, the aubergine slices can be frozen individually when cool, and then packed in a plastic bag to maintain storage space in the freezer.

This is my entry for Kalyn's Weekend Herb Blogging hosted this week by Valentina from Trembom.

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CooksRus: Pizza cookies (Τα παιδιά μαγειρεύουν πίτσα)

The children often see their mother cooking, and just recently, my daughter has taken an avid interest in watching me in the kitchen. It does feel a little strange, especially when she makes remarks at the table like "I saw you put oregano in the biftekia", or "You DID add parsley to the fasolada". I have to make sure she doesn't watch me grating zucchini into the chocolate cake; that will render one of the most popular uses of zucchini obsolete. It's nice when they eat healthy food without always asking too many questions about it.

Her brother is a little harder to entice into the kitchen. He is already aware that he doesn't need to participate in the cooking process. Once when I asked him to stir some chopped steak in a pan to make home-made souvlaki, he asked me if that's all he had to do. "Yes," I replied, "just stir it around to heat it up." "OK," he replied making a move to the television room, "Christine, you do it, and when it's ready, call me." He's turning into a fine specimen of Cretan male: did you know that Jesus was one, too? He left home at 33, he thought his mother was a virgin, and when she looked at him, she thought he was god. My husband and I had a good laugh over that one (I mean our son's reaction).

One of the biggest dilemmas of the family chef is what to cook on a daily basis. The comment she (as the cook usually is in this case) dreads most is: "Not this again!" I do hear this from my kids more frequently than I prefer (and probably most mothers do), but never from my husband. My Greek gourmet loves eating the same seasonal meals on a regular basis. The children have learnt to accept tastes that are not fully agreeable to their palate for the sake of their father, and that's why I'm always cooking 'safe food' - food that everyone knows the taste of very well, food that will still be edible, despite some common blunder on the part of the cook, rendering the meal imperfect.

One of those safe foods that's become a firm favorite in my house for all seasons is Laurie's ladenia crust. I always use it when making one-pan individually-tailored pizza, and recently used it to make vlita pita. It freezes wonderfully and you can use it as a frozen pizza base, like the ones they sell at the supermarket, only this one is the real thing with no artificial additives. Just freeze the bases one on top of another, making sure they won't stick to each other (I use thick aluminium foil which can be re-used if cleaned appropriately).

I've made a few rounds of this pie just lately, and I'm always in the dilemma of running out of pastry or running out of filling. I hate chucking out leftovers and I do not believe in unwanted food. But I do need inspiration to cook leftovers that possibly no one wants to eat and I personally don't want to throw out. So when I made Laurie's ladenia crust for my vlita pita, I had to figure out a way to use up the leftover dough. I wonder what other people do with their leftover crust when they find their inspiration and make ladenia; I suppose they think it's just another pizza, not vlita pita, because amaranth would be too difficult for some to source.



That's how CooksRus was born: "Hey kids, come into the kitchen! It's play-dough time!" I let them roll out the dough for fun. When they asked me for the Christmas cookie cutters, I thought they were enjoying themselves. But when they told me to cook their creations, I realised they were serious.



Here's what they invented: pizza cookies. I thought of tempting them into adding toppings like cheese and ham, but stopped myself just in time. They wanted to make 'safe' food, which means everything in its simplest, barest form: they treated the cookies as biscuits - great for breakfast with a glass of milk.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Pizza (Πίτσα με ζύμη μαγιάς)

I made a classic pizza using all the normal pizza parlour toppings using my favorite oily ladenia dough (click on the link for the dough recipe; see medcookingalaska for the original recipe). This has got to be the best pizza I have ever made. The recipe I used for making the crust is the same one as for ladenia, the best crust I have ever made with yeast. Once I had spread the dough out, I divided it into four uneven quarters. I topped each part appropriately for each member of the family. My husband likes the works, Christine likes a tomato sauce base on her cheese and ham pizza, Aristotle likes only cheese and ham, while I'm more of a vegetarian fan. It was a smash hit. The pictures speak for themselves. Making this pizza reminded me of my late mother who always baked home-made pizza for us, and loved to make 'the works' pizza. She even beat an egg and poured it over all the toppings. She would never make one pizza; it always had to be three: one in the tapsi (the Greek roasting dish) and two in classic holes-in-the-base pizza tins that she would deep-freeze. Good news too; even though Yianna spurned it the first time, she wants me to make the carnivore version of ladenia for her dinner party next week!

The dough remains the same as for the original recipe for ladenia (Greek pizza). The pizza toppings I chose were: ham and cheese slices, finely sliced tomato and green pepper and pepperoni salami. I forgot all about the mushrooms I had planned for my part of the pizza; I usually come last in terms of priority! As for anchovies and pineapple, we're more into Mediterranean toppings rather than the Hawaiian version; we never mix our sweet with our savoury. I drizzled olive oil and oregano over everything, and cooked it till the dough was ready. The tin needs to be the large Greek-style roasting dish, the same kind I used for ladenia.

A really delicious thick tomato sauce base can be used instead of the tomato slices and drizzling olive oil and oregano on the top, such as my puttanesca sauce for pasta. While it's cooking, it will turn the whole house into a Mediterranean aromatics factory! Believe it or not, the Greeks apparently invented pizza - the Italians simply perfected it. No wonder my mother used this kind of sauce in her pizzas. However you make this pizza, it will not last long; it's too delicious to remain uneaten. Maybe my mother was right to cook so many at a time!

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

MORE PIZZA/PIE RECIPES:
Ladenia
Pizza without yeast
Pizza carbonara
Chicken pie
Cottage pie
Spanakopita/hortopita
Kalitsounia
Leek pie
Sfakianes pites
Spiral pie

Ladenia (Λαδένια - Greek pizza)

I've never found an easier recipe to work with for making a pizza base (and a delicious pizza crust). Laurie Constantino was kind enough to comment on my recipe for black-eyed beans, and I found this recipe on her own food blog. All I can say is that the whole process of making ladenia was very soothing; I felt as if I was making an ancient form of pizza without the cholesterolic additions of ham and cheese. The house smelt of baking bread while the dough was rising, and, as Lauren says, the colours of ladenia remind you of Christmas, so it's seasonal fare, which easily substitutes for bread at your Christmas meal. My only addition was green pepper, because it is still found, albeit in small quantities, in our garden, and it adds to the Christmas colouring. Ladenia is baked in a traditional Greek oven dish called a 'tapsi' - the same pan we use to cook the Sunday roast. Because there is so much oil in this pizza, you can't bake it in a traditional pizza pan, which has holes in the base.

For the dough, you need:
1 cup of warm water
a packet of dried yeast (6-9 grams)
1 dash of salt
1/4 cup olive oil
3-4 cups of flour
Put the water in a large bowl and sprinkle it with the yeast. When you see some small bubbles on the surface of the water, you know that the yeast is working. Add the salt,and oil. Mix this into the water, and add about 3 cups of flour to make dough. Add enough flour to make a smooth, elastic and not very sticky dough. This takes practice; I just kept adding a fistful of flour until I felt that the dough looked and felt right. Let the dough rise a little before putting it in the baking dish.

Spread some olive oil over the bottom of a large round roasting pan. It must have high sides, otherwise the olive oil will spill over and burn your oven. Stretch the dough out with your hands, and put it in the tin. Knead it outwards to the sides of the pan until it covers the pan and turns up at the side. Don't worry if the oil oozes over the top of the dough; it'll make it more tasty. Cover the pan with a dish cloth; let it rise in a warm place until the dough has doubled in size (about 1 hour).

For the filling: Dice some tomatos, chop up some green peppers and slice a few onions. Season them with salt, pepper and oregano, and pour over some olive oil, as if making Greek salad. Mix this well in a bowl, and spread it evenly over the dough when it has risen. Bake it in a moderately hot oven, until the sides of the pizza have browned and the dough is cooked through. You can eat this bready meal hot or at room temperature, and it's perfect to eat the next day. It is also an excellent accompaniment to a plain soup, and if you live in a northern country, your friends won't forget you if you ever cook this for them in the middle of winter; it'll remind them of their Mediterranean summer holidays. Don't forget that the same dough mixture can be turned into the most delicious, stomach-warming pizza you've ever tasted!

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

MORE PIZZA/PIE RECIPES:
Pizza without yeast
Pizza with yeast
Pizza carbonara
Chicken pie
Cottage pie
Spanakopita/hortopita
Kalitsounia
Leek pie
Sfakianes pites
Spiral pie

Pizza (Πίτσα χωρίς μαγιά)

Here's a quick 'no yeast' based pizza dough that makes a thin, biscuity base. It's best eaten on the same day, as bread that does not contain yeast tends to dry out (whereas yeast products go mouldy instead). Mix some oil and margarine (about 1/2 cup worth) with an egg and a small tub of Greek yoghurt in a bowl. Add a teaspoon of baking powder and a sprinkling of salt. Then add the flour, enough to make a spreadable dough. Roll the dough out into a pizza or baking tin. I have a pizza tin that has holes in the base to allow the dough to cook better underneath.

For a filling yeast dough, look up my ladenia; it has now become a weekly treat for the whole family, and it is really easy to make. The dough requires very little kneading, it is easy to press out into a baking tin, and you can keep it vegetarian, as it contains a lot of olive oil, and makes a filling snack without the meaty toppings.

Top the pizza with a layer of thinly sliced ham, pepper rings, thinly sliced tomatoes and grated cheese. Cook till the pastry is crispy and brown, and the cheese is melted. Enjoy it once it's cooled down a little, as hot tomato burns!

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

MORE PIZZA/PIE RECIPES:
Ladenia
Pizza with a yeast dough
Pizza carbonara
Chicken pie
Cottage pie
Spanakopita/hortopita
Kalitsounia
Leek pie
Sfakianes pites
Spiral pie