Last week I mentioned that I entered a competition to find the ultimate breakfast pizza, and that I would test out a few different kinds.  As a big lover of vegemite from a young age, this was always going to be the first place that I would start

Breakfast Pizza With Vegemite – The Concept

I love bacon and eggs on vegemite toast for breakfast in the mornings (I don’t do it very often, it’s just a special treat for every now and then), and this seemed like a natural progression.  It also should be noted that bacon and eggs work really well on a pizza.  I’m not sure about whether other countries and cultures would traditionally have this combination on a pizza, but in Australia you can find this just about anywhere that sells pizzas, and it’s known as the Aussie Pizza!

I’ve made all sorts of strange combinations of pizza, most have worked out pretty well, and some have been a total disaster.  I’ve even made plenty of dessert pizzas, however breakfast pizza is a very new concept to me – but I’m loving it!  (I’m even thinking of adding a new chapter to my pizza cookbook, a whole section dedicated to breakfast pizza).

Vegemite, Cheese, Egg And Bacon Breakfast Pizza – The Result

Breakfast Pizza - Vegemite, Cheese, Egg And Bacon

My excitement was building as I began to put this new concoction together, and I was starting to gather some interested onlookers made up of the restaurant staff who wanted to see what I was up to.

Their initial responses were a bit less than enthusiastic, but I took it all in my stride and carried on anyway.

Anyone who knows vegemite knows that you really don’t need a lot, so I was careful to start with just a thin layer on the pizza base, before spreading the cheese on top.  I cut up 2 rashers of bacon into cubes, which were then spread around.  Lastly, I cracked two eggs, and spread them around as best I could (Note: 2 eggs is probably too much, one would have been enough).

The result was a spectacular success!  At least I think so, and those that were lucky enough (and brave enough) to try it.

I even managed to convince a couple of people who had been a bit apprehensive to give it a go, and all the comments were very positive.  Feedback for my very first breakfast pizza ranged from “This is actually alright!”, to “This just has the WOW factor!”.

Anyway, if the picture of my breakfast pizza experiment is not enough to satisfy you, then I strongly suggest you give it a go yourself!

The Ultimate Breakfast Pizza Competition

Oh, and by the way, I was announced today as a finalist for the competition, to be held this Friday.  The breakfast pizza that I will be cooking is the Eggs Florentine Pizza, and in the next post I’ll be sharing exactly how that goes…

Mick Reade

All Easy Food Recipes

Lately you may have noticed that I’ve been doing quite a few posts on various pizza recipes, and there’s a very good reason for that.  For starters, working in a kitchen with a wood-fired pizza oven leads me to nights of creativity and experimentation at times, which I find very enjoyable.

I also am planning something very exciting for you, my reader, to share all my knowledge and experience with you.  That’s all I can really say for now, there will be more updates when the time is right, but for now I just want to share with you a short article on why I think making pizza is fun…

Why Making Pizza Is Fun

Making Pizza Dough

Cooking in the kitchen can be fun! That is true regardless of what you’re making, and includes creating pizza. Creating a pizza from scratch can be especially enjoyable. These are a number of the benefits of using a specific pizza recipe to make a do-it-yourself pizza:

1. It’s Great Exercise

This is correct whether you are stirring tomato sauce ingredients, or working dough for the pizza crust. The physical effort required for cooking is often overlooked. That includes the process of making pizza. So if you’re looking for an effective way to get some exercise, you should try creating your own pizza rather than using the phone to get one delivered. The former task provides much more exercise than the latter one does. And since you will most likely aim to counter the calories consumed whilst ingesting your pizza, a superb way to do that is by burning some of them while making the pizza itself!

2. It Can Be An Activity To Share With Others

By all means, creating pizza might involve solely you. However it is much more enjoyable to share the experience. Whether you get help from your friends or relatives, each person may have a unique task that he or she should finish. And the combination of the various tasks ends up helping to make the perfect pizza. As well, by receiving help from friends or family you can share ideas about how to better the assorted elements of the pizza.

3. It Is Hands-On

Rolling Out Pizza Dough

Meals taste extra lovely when you feel the food whilst making it. Whether you’re shredding cheese, working balls of pizza dough, or stirring sauce – each of these processes are really tactile. Too frequently in today’s world we have become too used to consuming a meal that someone else has cooked. But by following a pizza recipe to bake your own pizza, you can have the benefit of a hands-on approach to the pizza’s creation. From the molding of the pizza base to the sprinkling of the cheese – engaging in these tactile processes makes for an exceptionally meaningful experience.

4. It Makes For A Unique Cooking Experience

Whilst there are other types of food that have several elements, there isn’t anything quite like making a pizza with a pizza recipe. Without a doubt, there’s no cooking experience in the world that comes close to making a pizza. For example, you should consider that there are four significant elements of pizza: The base, the sauce, the cheese, and the toppings. All of these elements makes for a large amount of possibilities. And as a consequence, every pizza that you cook can be a unique work of art.

5. It’s Cheap

One of the biggest benefits of making your own pizza is that the cost will most likely be much less expensive than buying a pizza. That’s because you won’t have to pay many of the costs linked to pizzas cooked at restaurants. That can include franchising costs, labor costs, and delivery costs. When the costs are lower, the pizza will taste more delicious!

Creating a pizza can absolutely be enjoyable. These aforementioned reasons are some of the most important ones. Even if you make a pizza without meatballs on it, you can have a ball making a pizza!

Are you searching for the finest pizza recipe in the history of the planet? There are tons of pizza chefs and eateries out there who maintain that they have the best pizza recipe. Making pizzas has a sense of alchemy about it for me, the way that you can easily turn simple flour and water with a bit of yeast into a pizza dough, and fits somewhere between an art and a science.

The Main Elements Of All The Best Pizzas…

Chicken And Rocket Pizza

The four “cornerstones” of a quality pizza are the pizza dough, sauce, cheese, and toppings. Every one of these components are necessary for making the best pizza. However, arguably the greatest style is to make the pizza from the bottom-up. And that starts with the base of the pizza-the dough.

On one hand, pizza dough is easy to make. The ingredients are somewhat simple and effortless to find. They include: Flour, yeast, water, oil, and a little sugar. However, not all types of pizza dough are the same. The volume of every ingredient can fluctuate. The dough recipe may even have some secret ingredients included. In addition, the ingredients can be used to form pizza doughs of assorted thicknesses. This can go from a pizza recipe used for thin and crispy base, to deep-dish pizza.

When you make a pizza base from scratch, it’s important that all of the ingredients are as fresh as possible. In particular, it’s key that the yeast is as fresh as a sea breeze. If the yeast does not turn out to be bubbly after sitting for ten minutes (via the process of “proofing”), then that should tell you that it wasn’t fresh enough. You will need to throw out the yeast and begin again.

How Do You Like Your Pizza Base?

The “perfect” crust is dependent on each person’s opinion. In essence you will need to use a recipe that creates the finest base to your liking. Sure, you could make some adjustments if you’re not satisfied with the end result. But the essence of the recipe should remain the same. This will build the ideal foundation for the perfect pizza.

Luckily for you it’s easy to find a pizza recipe, via various online and offline sources. That means that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. There has already been tons of experimentation done by others to create a quality pizza base. All you need to do is search until you get the suited crust to your liking.

What Makes The Best Pizza Dough For A Pizza Base?

When creating pizza, flavour is what’s most important. Yes, it’s significant for there to be a balance of flavours-no individual element of the pizza should overpower the rest of the pizza. However, it’s also key that the pizza dough be flavorful.

An extra important aspect of better quality pizza dough is the texture. Look for pizza dough that produces crust with the perfect consistency. It should be crispy, but not have the texture of cardboard. It should also be chewy, but not have the texture of rubber.

Always approach making a pizza with the base in mind first. If you get the base dead on, then you’ve built a great foundation for your construction of the perfect pizza. The best pizza crust recipe is out there-you just have to find it!

It’s been quite a while since the last time I updated this blog as I’ve been very hectic for the past 6 months or so in a new kitchen at Penny Garden in the Swan Valley in Perth.

Recently I’ve been getting inspired again to share some of my cooking adventures, as well as more recipes, cooking tips and maybe even some videos, after reading Matt Preston’s book, Cravat-A-Licious.  If you haven’t heard of Matt, he’s widely renowned as the world’s best food writer.  I haven’t looked into whether you can get the book online, so I don’t have any links I’m afraid, however I would highly recommend it as a great read if you love your food!

Pizza Experimentation Gone Horribly Wrong…

Wood-Fired Pizza Oven

So I decided to kick things back off again with a story of the most horrendous pizza creation I’ve made so far…

It was a cold Winter night in Melbourne at the Imperial Hotel on Bourke St.  More often than not this place was buzzing with activity, however on this particular night barely a soul could be found.  I think we did something ridiculous like only about 5 covers for the night, so the boredom led me towards experimentation.

You may be aware that recently I self-published a Pizzas And Parmas cookbook on Amazon, as I loved creating new toppings for both pizzas and chicken parmigianas, so on this night I decided to try combining my 2 loves in one meal.

I remember thinking about how it should work great, as the different elements of a traditional chicken parma, chicken, napoli sauce, ham and cheese, would all quite easily find a place on the pizza.

Boy, Was I Wrong!

Using plain chicken breast seemed too easy and boring, I wanted to know how an actual chicken schnitzel would go on my pizza.  I had the pizza base prepared and ready to go, with sauce, cheese and ham on top, all that was left to do was deep fry the schnitzel, cut it into pieces and add it on top.

Any time I decide to experiment, it usually draws a crowd of the staff, who had been standing around bored, so I now had an audience awaiting the results.  Funnily enough though no-one was brave enough to try the first piece, so I grabbed one and took a mouthful.

My first reaction was that it was ok, just a bit chewy, so this encouraged one or two others to pick up a slice and try it.  By the time I was ready to swallow though, it just didn’t seem to sit right with me in my mouth.  I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was wrong, so another mouthful was needed to confirm my feelings.

I don’t think I even managed to swallow this mouthful, and looking around to see the looks on the faces of the others that had tried it made us quickly decide that this pizza was only fit for the bin.

The Moral Of The Story…

I’ve had deep fried chips and gravy on a pizza, which turned out great, but my new rule of thumb is that deep frying meat and putting it on pizza will only leave you with disastrous results.  I reckon it might have something to do with effectively cooking it twice at high temperature, giving you a ‘tough as leather’ pizza.

Sadly, (or thankfully, depending on your point of view) there is no photographic evidence, as the pizza went into the bin pretty quickly.  We still had some time on our hands on this boring night however, so we washed down the terrible taste with some deep-fried Mars Bars.  I’ll save that story for next time…

Ingredients for Easy Buffalo Chicken Pizza Recipe

Buffalo Chicken Pizza

1 pizza dough recipe
1 ts Olive oil
1/4 c Butter; melted
1/4 c Hot cayenne pepper sauce
2 c Diced cooked chicken; (about 250g)
1/2 c Chopped celery
1 c Crumbled blue cheese

Easy Buffalo Chicken Pizza Preparation

Preheat the oven to 250C.

Using your fingertips or the heel of your hand, spread the dough to cover the bottom of a 12 inch pizza pan that has been sprinkled with a little semolina to stop it from sticking.

Push the dough up to the edge of the pan, forming a rim. If the dough is too sticky, dust it and your hands lightly with flour. With a fork, prick the dough 15 to 20 times. Brush with the oil.

In a medium-sized bowl, combine the butter and hot pepper sauce; mix well. Add the chicken and celery and toss to coat well. Spread evenly over the prepared base, then sprinkle with the blue cheese.

Bake for 7-10 minutes, or until the pizza crust is crisp and brown. Cut and serve.

NOTE: Make sure you use hot cayenne pepper sauce and not hot pepper sauce – yes, there is a difference!

Today is a very exciting day for me, as I just received the published copy of my brand new pizza cookbook!  It’s been a very long time coming, and it’s taken a great deal of time and effort to make it happen.

Me Holding My New Pizza Cookbook!

If you’ve been following me for a while, I very much appreciate your support and patience, and I look forward to sharing a lot more easy recipes with you in the near future.  In the meantime, if you’re keen to check out my pizza cookbook, you can find it here at Amazon.

I decided that I will share my absolute favourite pizza recipe to celebrate this occasion, so here it is

Gourmet Greek Lamb Pizza Ingredients

Gourmet Greek Lamb Pizza

200g dough ball, rolled and ready

2 ½ tablespoons Napoli sauce

90g mozzarella cheese, grated

10g dried mixed herbs

35g feta cheese, diced

20g kalamata olives, pitted and sliced

2 garlic cloves, crushed

100g lamb backstrap, marinated in basil pesto

2 tablespoons Greek yoghurt or Tzatziki

Gourmet Greek Lamb Pizza Method

1. Preheat a pizza stone in your oven to 250C for 30 minutes, or use a really hot wood-fired oven.
2. Spread Napoli sauce over the pizza base.
3. Cover with cheese, then sprinkle mixed herbs and crushed garlic over the top (add a little olive oil to the garlic to make it easier to distribute if you like).
4. Sprinkle the olives and crumble the feta cheese over the pizza.
5. Cook in the oven at 250C for 7 to 10 minutes.
6. While your pizza is in the oven, seal both sides of your lamb backstrap on a hot frypan, then place in the oven for about 3 to 5 minutes (ideally the meat should be medium-rare, but it’s up to you how much you like it cooked).
7. When your lamb is cooked to your liking, take out of the oven and allow to rest for 2 minutes.
8. Slice the lamb thinly, and place over the top of the cooked pizza.
9. Cut the pizza into slices, and drizzle the yoghurt or tzatziki over the top.

I don’t often eat a lot of vegetarian meals, but lately I’ve been more conscious of cutting back on my meat portions.  In doing so, I’ve found that it’s not always that easy to achieve.  I found this great recipe that is not only a tasty vegetarian option, it also has tons of nutritional benefits, with mushrooms to make up for the protein you would normally get from meat.

Spinach is also one of the best vegetables you can eat to get your daily dietary requirements of many vitamins and minerals (so Popeye was right all along!).  Enjoy…

Ingredients for Fresh Tomato, Spinach and Mushroom Pizza Recipe

Tomato, Mushroom And Spinach Pizza

150g Spinach
1 medium Plum Tomato
80g Mushrooms
1 tb Olive Oil
1 Pizza Base dough recipe
100g Mozzarella Cheese; Shredded (Caboolture cheese is best)
20g Caramelised Onions
1/2 ts Dried Oregano
1/2 ts Black Pepper

Fresh Tomato, Spinach and Mushroom Pizza Preparation

Preheat oven to 250C.  Preheat your pizza stone for at least 30 minutes prior to putting your pizza in the oven.

Wash and thinly slice spinach leaves. Cut tomatoes into 1/2cm thick slices; thinly slice mushrooms.

In a frying pan over medium heat, cook mushrooms in olive oil until tender.

Sprinkle the cheese over your pizza base. Top with sliced spinach, tomatoes, and mushrooms. Sprinkle with onions, oregano, and pepper.

Sprinkle a little semolina on your pizza stone (or just use a piece of greaseproof paper) and place pizza on your pizza stone in oven for 7-10 minutes or until crust is golden.

Remove the pizza from the oven when cooked, cut into slices and serve.

Ingredients for Garlic Chicken Pizza Recipe

4 oz Light cream cheese; softened
1/4 c Non-fat sour cream
2 Cloves garlic; mashed
1 c Boned and skinned chicken breast halves; cooked and diced
1/2 Red onion; cut in rings
1/2 Tomato; chopped
1/2 c Mushrooms; sliced
1 c Mozzarella cheese; shredded
1 Pizza base

Garlic Chicken Pizza Preparation

Preheat your oven to 250C.

Mix together cream cheese, sour cream and mashed garlic until smooth. Spread on pizza base, top with chicken, onion, tomato and mushrooms and cheese.

Bake in a 250C oven for 10 minutes or until crust is done and cheese is melted. Top with parmesan cheese.

Recently I made a cooking video teaching you an easy way to make pizza dough at home for yourself, now I show you how to finish the pizza off and cook it in the oven, again with the help of my friend Belinda.

There are some issues with the audio on this video, as it was recorded in the kitchen with a loud exhaust fan going, so I must apologise for that, but I hope you enjoy this pizza video we made for you anyway!

Wood-Fired Pizza Making Video

I would love to hear about your pizza making stories, tips, or any comments or thoughts you have on my pizza video.  And you can get yourself a free cookbook by visiting All Easy Food Recipes.

Recipe Preparation: bake (with Pizza Baking Stone)

Cooking Temperature: 250C
Recipe Serves: 1

Ingredients for Grated Zucchini-Pesto Pizza Recipe

1 16-inch pizza base
2 lb Zucchini*
3/4 c Pesto
2 Garlic cloves, peeled/minced
1/2 lb Mozzarella, shredded

Grated Zucchini-Pesto Pizza Preparation

*washed, trimmed, grated or shredded, and squeezed dry in a dish towel.

1. Preheat oven to 250C for 30 minutes for a pizza pan or 60 minutes for pizza tiles or stones.

2. Combine the zucchini, pesto, garlic, and mozzarella in a large bowl. Spread the mixture over the pizza base.

3. Bake in a preheated 250C oven for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the crust is golden.

This pizza is delicious hot or cold.