Mis-identified Vegetable and Green Pizza

I mis-identified a vegetable I used in my garlic greens stir-fry! I thought what I'd used was broccolini, but now I think it was kai-lan, otherwise known as Chinese broccoli or Chinese kale. According to Wikipedia, broccolini is a cross between broccoli and kai-lan, so at least I was in the right family. Thanks to The Crispy Cook for posting about Chinese broccoli, leading to the discovery of my error! I have to say, I like the name Green Lance best, and love the superhero outfit Rachel donned for her post.

I had a bunch of leftovers from my green stir-fry, and a little bit of chilli leftover from some I had frozen recently. Instead of my usual pizza toppings, I used chilli in place of tomato paste, and cooked greens as the vegetable component.


Freshly Made Leftover Pizza


Not expecting too much from my leftover concoction, I was pleasantly surprised that this was one of the best pizzas I've made! I'll definitely be trying to re-create this one when I have the right leftovers lying around.

Freefrom - Pizza Dough Mix

Friday night is pizza night. That's the way it's been ever since Neil and I moved in together a year and a half ago, and I wouldn't dare challenge the routine... not that I'm complaining. I love pizza!

I have one delivery option for pizza - that's Hell Pizza who offer gluten-free bases, and have a nice vegan pizza (called Sinister!), topped with tomato and refried beans - it sounds boring but I really do love it. But in general, I prefer to make my own pizza. Before I became gluten-free, I received a pizza stone for my birthday, and had just started playing with making my own dough. That went on pause for a while, during which time I used the Purebread corn and seed pizza base. These are generally okay, good enough for a convenience, but are not as nice as freshly made bread - and on occasion, have seemed to come out of the packet already stale.

One day browsing the gluten-free products that can be ordered from Woolworths, I found a Freefrom pizza dough mix that I decided to try out - for a more homemade, less corny, pizza base option.

The packet makes two bases, so I halved the recipe to make only one. It was incredibly easy to make using the dough hooks on my hand mixer, and there was no waiting for the dough to rise or anything. I pressed the dough out onto oiled tinfoil, which I put straight onto the pre-heated pizza stone in the oven. After topping with tomato paste, zucchini, roast red pepper, and cheese, of course.


First pizza with new dough


The base was good, so nice having something fresh and bready. I'm probably not used to so much base, so I was really quite full by the end of the pizza (yes, I ate the whole pizza), so next time I split the mixture into two, made one thinner crust pizza, and froze the rest of the dough for later.

Second take: With a thinner crust! (quarter mix). Much better, but perhaps not quite enough for a whole meal?


Thinner crust



The base, with some product placement!


Now that I've tried a few different size options, I think it is perfect to make the whole mix, and separate it into three portions. Two can be frozen (I just cover the dough in a bit more oil, and wrap in glad-wrap (uh, cling film for those of you not in NZ). One third of the packet makes a decent sized pizza for one. This mix is definitely a keeper!