Pizza Sunday / Green Pizza

Green Pizza

It was my choice this Sunday, & by the time Luke got home from work it was too late to go to the shops to get anything specific so I worked with what I had and decided to go with all green ingredients. This week I put on small florets of broccoli, capsicum, avocado, sautéed zucchini & steamed silver beet. I had to fight every urge within me not to put mushrooms on this pizza as I usually put mushrooms on everything. 

It wasn't a horrible pizza, but the topping took on a slight packaged pizza taste and I think that was because of the raw broccoli. Next time I'm the pizza sheriff and use broccoli as topping I will steam the florets a little beforehand to see if that makes a difference. I would give it 5/10.

Return of Pizza Sunday

Vegetarian with spicy olives

This week I was in charge of the pizza making & much to Luke's dismay I did not put nearly as much cheese topping as he does & found I enjoyed it a lot more. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing better than a cheesy pizza but the spicy olives were the hero this week & leaving off the extra cheese sprinkle was for the best. It has been quite some time since I made just a basic veggie pizza, & it has been even longer since I added olives to the mix as I go through phases with them.

For this weeks simple vegetarian pizza I cut up cherry tomatoes, baby spinach, mushrooms, red onion, Danish feta,  & spicy chilli & garlic stuffed olives from the deli. The olives gave this simple veggie pizza the extra kick it needed!

Pizza Sunday

Balsamic mushrooms, spinach, sundried tomato & avocado

Pizza Sunday almost didn't happen tonight, I was so close to just ordering pizza and letting that be it but as a last minute decision I decided to not be lazy and just make something. I also took the opportunity to use a bbq sauce base as Luke isn't a fan of the bbq base and I do prefer it.

I kept it simple tonight, I just sautéed a couple of mushrooms in a pan with brown sugar & balsamic, sprinkled two handfuls of baby spinach, sun dried tomatoes & avocado slivers and put that bad boy in the oven! 

It was a quick & tasty Pizza Sunday.

Pizza Sunday

Mini Veggie Delight

This week's pizza Sunday was a solo effort as Luke is still staying at the coast while he finishes up at his old job. I didn't want to make an entire pizza for myself so I bought some smaller pizza bases to stick in the freezer for this week and next while I'm without my pizza partner.

On my mini veggie delights I put spinach, mushroom, red onion, avocado, cherry tomatoes & red capsicum. It was nice to just have a run of the mill veggie pizza. It didn't really look that appetising, but it was pretty tasty.

Pizza Sunday

Pumpkin + garlic puree, roasted balsamic tomatoes & silver beet 

This week's pizza topping was a last minute slap together with whatever we had in the fridge left over from the week. One of Luke's favourite things to have on a pizza is pumpkin puree, which I am not really that fond of, but the last couple of Sunday's have been my ideas so I let my pumpkin puree guard down and gave it a go. And it was actually a lot nicer than I remembered, especially with the fresh garlic through it.

I got distracted putting Romy to bed, tidying up & watching a special on tv that I completely forgot to take photos of our pizza and it still didn't cross my mind until Luke pulled the pizza out of the oven. But lucky for me Luke has been paying attention for all these weeks and took some quick photos for me!

Our pizza stayed in the oven about 30 seconds (our oven seriously cooks a pizza in 5 minutes for realz, its ridiculous) too long, and it was a bit burnt but it still tasted amazing. I will definitely be more opened to a pumpkin puree base for next time!

Pizza Sunday

Roasted Vegetables, Chilli, Garlic & Parmesan 

Tonight's pizza was a pretty bold punch to the taste buds, thanks to Luke's generous use of chilli and garlic. Either way, it was pretty tasty and not very similar to the pizza toppings we usually have. I don't mind eggplant, but I do prefer to have it with other things and it worked quite well on the pizza tonight. We roasted eggplant & red + green capsicums with olive oil and pink Himalayan rock salt, finely diced fresh garlic and chillies,  topped with mushrooms, black olives, red onion & shredded parmesan. 

I would definitely put this pizza on my favourite list and could see this being a regular family favourite of ours. 

Pizza Sunday

Mushroom & Pineapple

This week, although we were prepared for our Sunday Pizza night, I took the easy route & had my go-to pizza topping - mushroom & pineapple with bbq sauce. It is always good, and a convenient favourite to have when we have plans on Sunday afternoons. Our pizzas weren't put in the oven until 8.30pm this evening so I completely forgot to take a pizza photo, but I am sure you get the gist. And anyway, this pizza will win you over solely on how good and wholesome it tastes as a vegetarian alternative to the Hawaiian family classic. 

Pizza Sunday

Nacho Pizza

The pizza place where we buy our pizzas when we are too lazy to make them has a pretty tasty nacho pizza that Luke occasionally opts for, so I suggested we make our own version of it for pizza sunday. It is just topped with corn chips, so we put our own spin on it and it made it a little differently. 

For our nacho pizza we sprinkled a small amount of cheese on the base, and spread our simple nacho mix to cover the base. Our nacho mix was taco sauce, tabasco sauce, mexican spice, lentils, capsicum, mushrooms and baby spinach diced finely. We put the pizza in the oven just like that and in the last ten minutes or so of baking, we pulled the pizza out and sprinkled crushed up corn chip pieces & the top layer of cheese over the pizza. The corn chips were crushed up into smaller 1cm pieces, so they weren't too small. We then topped our pizza with sour cream, guacamole & sweet chilli. Fresh avocado pieces would have been much better, but like always the Coles near our house never has anything so we weren't able to buy any fresh avocados today. 

Our version of nacho pizza is definitely one of my favourite pizzas we have made, with our balsamic pizza being a close second.

Pizza Sunday

Roasted pumpkin, spinach, feta, rosemary & pine nuts

For this week's pizza I took the ingredients from a quick and easy salad my Mum likes to make for bbqs & parties; feta, spinach, roasted pumpkin, pine nuts & balsamic glaze. For our pizza version we left off the drizzle of balsamic glaze & roasted the pumpkin with rosemary. My Mum usually uses baby spinach leaves for the salad, but we already had silver beet spinach so we used that instead (hot tip: olive oil over the spinach will stop it from burning in the oven). 

Luke really enjoyed this topping, but I felt like there was something missing. Maybe a spicy tomato paste would have given it a little bit of a kick. 

Pizza Sunday

Balsamic mushroom + onions with fresh cherry tomatoes & feta

This week Luke & I thought we would try something neither one of us has had before on a pizza, balsamic. For a while there one of our favourite dishes was balsamic mushrooms with grilled polenta, & while we haven't had that particular dish in a while, we do like to caramelise onions & mushrooms to have with our eggs every so often. 

 

To caramelise the onions & mushrooms, heat a pan with oil & sauté the mushrooms & onions adding sugar & balsamic vinegar

To avoid burning the feta, Luke pulled the pizza out of the oven & added it on just before it was ready 

And it was delicious! 

Pizza Sunday

Smoked salmon, baby capers, avocado & aioli

Tonights pizza was slapped together at 9pm after Australia Day celebrations at my aunties holiday cottage. My sister & brother-in-law stayed over and we had pizza and cocktails. 

We made two pizzas for pizza night, but I thought I needed to shake the veg fest up with some sort of meat pizza and tonight we used smoked salmon. We had mojitos and Pimm's cocktails with our pizza and they were delicious thanks to my sisters awesome cocktail mixing skills!

Pizza Sunday

Asparagus, bocconcini & sun-dried tomatoes

When Luke & I are thinking of our Sunday pizza topping I like to pick one ingredient and match it up with other things. This week I wanted to put asparagus on our pizza, which is a vegetable we don't normally use when we're making our meals. I initially thought of putting mushroom with it, but as Luke likes to point out, "you can't put mushroom on everything".

My sister was visiting on Saturday and she saw our pizza topping ideas chalk board (yes, we take pizza seriously) and suggested a different type of mushroom to go with the asparagus rather than the sun-dried tomato. I did agree with her, but I had already committed to not inviting mushroom to this weeks pizza party, and if it didn't turn out then we could try a different variation next time with asparagus. 

And it ended up tasting pretty delicious, and not the usual taste you would expect with asparagus. 

Pizza Sunday

Vegetable Tandoori

This weeks pizza was a little last minute, and it was almost 9pm when we sat down to eat dinner so I only took a couple of really quick photos. Luke & I have made this pizza a few times and find its the best 'throw together' topping as you can basically use any vegetable you have. This week we used steamed zucchini & broccoli, capsicum, mushroom, shallots & cheese on a tandoori sauce base. Alternatively you can use a naan bread as the pizza base, which we have done in the past due to a pizza base shortage at the shops. 

It also tastes good with a Pimm's!

*New Feature* Pizza Sunday

I've mentioned before that Sunday nights are mine & Luke's pizza night. Every Sunday we try to make a different pizza & it has become one of our things we like to do together. We even make it a novelty be getting a little competitive with who comes up with the better topping ideas! So I thought I could turn our little weekly ritual into a pizza feature on here. Even though I am vegetarian, not all the pizzas in this feature will be. Some weeks Luke makes his own pizza with meat on it, and if they aren't too gross (Luke likes to put egg on his meat pizzas & it weirds me out a little) I'll break the veg fest up with some of his.

Broccoli with roasted pumpkin & eshallots 

This week I wanted to use broccoli on my pizza, I've tried it once before but I over-steamed it and it didn't end up having too much taste. We originally intended to put on sun-dried tomatoes, but we forgot to pick them up at the shops this afternoon. Luckily Luke had some roasted eshallots to take their place and it ended up being much nicer, especially with the roasted pumpkin. We topped ours with aioli, and it was delicious with the extra hint of garlic!