MAMA MIA HERE I GO AGAIN ...

 Yes, I know that it's the chorus from that bloody awful ABBA song Mama Mia* but it seems appropriate as a heading for this post because tonight we're cooking pizza for dinner. PIZZA! "How can I resist ya?"

The Old Girl has been busy working in the office (my study) all day and I've been busy doing manly things about the property (see previous post) so neither of us are inclined to prepare a serious meal. We agreed on pizza.

We make our pizzas with a combination of prepackaged stuff in jars and cans along with fresh vegetables, cheeses and meats. I normally make (have made and frozen) my home-made pizza bases but am out of these so am using some 'sto-bought' ones from the freezer.

These are pretty good though - the brand is Gianni's and I bought these from COUNTDOWN. They have a fairly thin base so don't require much cooking. Eight minutes will suffice.

As we are going for instant gratification I haven't pre-prepared any chicken, fresh tuna or prawns so I'll be using a can of tuna and The Old Girl will be using salami.

I have just prepared some tasty toppings though, chopping up garlic, spring onion, capsicum and piquant peppers and gently sautéing them in ginger and garlic oil.

The aromatics are wonderful

The other toppings (various) will be olives, capers, tuna, salami, anchovies, tomato puree, basil pesto, jalapeño chillies

Bottom and top will be some Mozzarella cheese.

I buy this grated, in a large bag and break down to small 'single serve' bags which I freeze. They keep well and are perfect for pizza.

The Old Girl uses tomato paste for the undercoat on her pizza and I usually use pesto.

We have ............. *JUST TO HAND*. The Old Girl has just informed me that she won't be making her pizza with salami but will be using Halloumi, Feta and rocket.

No problem and it reminds me that we have some Feta in the fridge so I'll add that to my tuna based pizza.

Moving on - we have a nice pizza stone courtesy of Fisher and Paykel which came with the purchase of a fancy new oven we installed in our renovated Point Chevalier property. We brought it with us (the stone not the oven) to our place up north to an unrenovated villa with a crappy small oven and have made many a good pizza with it.

The stone came with a wooden pizza 'shovel' that is still giving good service even though I nearly burnt it to a crisp a few weeks ago. I decided to dry it after washing it, along with some wooden spoons, in a hot oven and then promptly forgot about them. The Old Girl raced into the kitchen from her office (my study) and said "What the hell (she used a stronger expletive) are you doing?.Admittedly there was a bit of smoke in the kitchen which necessitated all of the windows and doors in the near vicinity being opened and a long anxious wait to see 'what was cooking'?

The result was some wooden spoons that have gone to their rest but the good news is that the 'shovel' is still intact albeit changed in hue.

Another very useful and well used pizza accompaniment is this pizza slicing tool. 

We were given this as a Christmas gift from the owner of a local Italian restaurant we often frequented in Point Chevalier (a very nice guy). This was about 16 years ago and the tool is still in use and at the top of our favourites list.

Do you know what?

It's time to put together these things and make the pizzas .....

Oh! "Hold on, hold on" as Private Frazer used to say, we've forgotten about the wine, that will be drunk with our pizzas. Here's a pic of them:

A really nice Italian Primotivo (zinfadel) and a a very nice Hawkes Bay chardonnay.

The more observant of you readers might have noticed that the chardonnay bottle is empty and the Primotivo is only half full. Busted! 

Yes I've (we've) been sipping this afternoon but, in fairness, the bottles were opened on Saturday (2 days ago). I do think I need another glass of wine though and will most likely open a bottle of pinot noir.

I'm looking forward to our meal. How are you going?

* The ABBA songwriters were (and are) damned good pop song writers though with clever lyrics and catchy tunes. I can only dream of writing anything that good.