Non-violent Harry Potter pizzas

We’re up to week 4 of the EnviroMom Meatless Supper Club. 10 of us are putting together a store of recipes over a period of 8 weeks by cooking one meatless meal a week for our families. I’m continuing with my theme, attempting to make meatless meals fun for kids by turning them into a construction project at the table.  Melissa gave me her fantastic pizza dough recipe, and my husband led the charge and made the pizzas with our son and two of his friends. All I had to do was to announce that the theme was "Harry Potter character faces", then take photos.  Hmmm…must say a couple of my photos are so shaky they look like I’ve just been hit by the Cruciatus Curse.

Here’s Melissa’s pizza base recipe:

I have been making bread since I was a kid.  This seems like an odd method, but it is fail-safe!  It is made in 2 stages;

1.  In a big bowl (not plastic) - just whack it all in and stir +/- 100 times with a wooden spoon -- I bet 50 would actually do it. The stirring gets the gluten going.  This bit is called the sponge.  It will look wet.

• 3 ½  to 4 ½ c flour (we use a combo of 3 cups white and 1 cup rolled oats (gives a little chewiness) and wholemeal flour mixed together.  You can use all white or all wholemeal or any combo, but there is no gluten in oats, so no more than 1/2 cup!  Note that any flour will do, people think you need something special but plain old flour is fine.
• 1 Tbsp yeast (that's 1 package in US)
• Approx ¼  - 1/3 c of any kind of sweetening (brown sugar, honey etc)
•  3 c water (tepid ie not hot or cold, a little warm is ok)
•  1 egg (totally optional, but I prefer it)

Throw a damp tea towel over it and put somewhere, anywhere (on the bench, in a hot water cupboard, just not somewhere cold or drafty) for ¾ hour or longer.  To be honest I often do this in the morning and deal to it all later. 

2.  Throw in:

• 1 - 1 ½ Tbsp of salt.  Do not omit this, it tastes awful without salt.
• ¼ c or about 2 Tbsp olive oil -- a good splosh. 
• 3 - 4 or so cups of flour (any combo of white and wholemeal).  Put the first couple of cups straight in, then just add the rest as required.

Get your hands in and mush, mix, knead, pound - you cannot get this wrong.  Add the minimum of flour to make a dough that you can knead.  You will need some more flour to stop it sticking to the bench.  Kneading is basically pushing, slapping mashing.  Great kid fun, you can't get it wrong. When you've had enough, make it into a ball.  Slosh a little more oil into the bowl and swoosh the dough around so that it has a thin covering of oil.  Put the tea towel back on top, and leave for 30-60 minutes (or longer but not more than a couple of hours).  Get your child to make a fist and punch the dough in the middle. He or she will laugh, it will "poof" and collapse a bit.

Now grab bits, flour the board (just use the minimum or it will get too dry) and roll.  If you don't have a rolling pin, a wine bottle works!

Turn Oven on to about 180c 350F

Put on baking trays - I put baking paper under them.  Cook!

The reason the Harry Potter theme was chosen is because my son’s favourite pizza is meat-lovers (Eeek!), followed by Hawaiian. I figured that if my husband announced that they were making vegetarian pizzas, his would consist only of cheese and pineapple, with barbeque sauce.  But faces require interesting colors and vegetables – and kids love to be gory and eat the eyes, even if they’re made from olives.

The building materials:  
They used pesto (both tomato and basil), sliced zucchini, black olives, tomatoes, pineapple, mushrooms, red capsicum, mozzarella and caramelized onion.

The construction:
Unfortunately no-one read the last sentence of Melissa’s recipe: “Cook!”.  So the kids built their faces on un-cooked pizza dough.  Luckily it worked out fine.  Melissa wasn’t kidding when she said the recipe was fail-safe.

The results:

Hermoine:

Fred:

And Fred’s twin, George.

The verdict:
My son’s friends were a wonderful addition to the Meatless Supper Club this week. They said enthusiastic stuff like: “Yum! I love pesto” and “Yay! Caramelized onion!”. There was nothing they turned their noses up at -- I’m thinking about borrowing them for dinner, every night for a month.  They all had fun making their faces and the final result was declared “super-dooper delicious”. All olive eyes and capsicum mouths were scoffed, although there was no reason for them to use the zucchini.  Next time we’ll push our luck, bring out the broccoli and try making Incredible Hulk pizzas.

Comments

[Melissa]

You got it right!!! I always put the toppings on and then cook... looks delicious. Our Fave is either plain old Margharita (tomatoes and Mozzarella with a little fresh basil strewn over after as it comes out of the oven), or Zuchini and feta with a bit of garlic on a pesto base. Yum!!