The Thrifty Cookbook: 476 Ways to Eat Well With Leftovers (40 page)

Once again, knead the dough on a lightly floured surface – but this time for only a few minutes, until you have punched a good bit of the air out of it. Then divide into 4 balls (or 8 if you want small pizzas) and roll each one out into a rough circle around 3mm thick, using a rolling pin or a combination of rolling and stretching by hand.

Preheat the oven to the hottest it will go. If you are cooking the pizza on the base of a cast iron casserole dish (see
page 125
), turn the dish upside down, lightly oil the base and leave it in the oven to preheat. (Alternatively, use a pizza stone or an upturned baking tray in place of the casserole dish.)

Spread the tomato sauce quite thinly over the dough bases, finishing with slices of mozzarella and/or grated cheese.

Place the pizza on the upturned casserole dish and bake for 7-15 minutes, according to the thickness of the base, until the base is cooked and crisp and the edges are browning.

The ends of hard cheese
Spread the pizza bases with the tomato sauce. Crumble or grate the cheese, then dot it all over the pizzas and bake as on
page 127
. You could add ham, salami or bacon, too, if you like.

Leftover chicken or meatballs
Tear chicken into strips or crumble cold cooked meatballs (see
pages 144
-
5
) over the tomato base. Top with cheese and bake as on
page 127
.

Store-cupboard ingredients
This is the time to get out all your bottles of Roasted Peppers and Tomatoes (see
page 44
), or olives, artichoke hearts and anchovies. Spread the dough with the tomato sauce, scatter over the toppings, then sprinkle with cheese. Pesto (see
page 139
) is gorgeous dolloped in small heaps over a tomato base between a pattern of roughly broken mozzarella, with torn basil or oregano on top.

Vegetables
Think of spinach (with ricotta cheese and an egg) or steamed French beans (with prosciutto, jamon serrano or salami). Leftover roast vegetables really come into their own here – such as sweet potato, goat’s cheese and thyme, or rounds of roast aubergine and garlic with a few dried chilli flakes. Put the vegetables on the tomato-topped pizza bases and bake as on
page 127
.

Pissaladière
A French version of pizza, using one large piece of dough pulled out into a rough oblong that will fit an oiled metal baking tray or the underneath of a metal roasting dish. Spread the dough with 4 large onions that have been finely sliced and cooked in butter or oil until completely soft (or use Onion Marmalade, see
page 42
). Dot stoned black olives over the top and thin fillets of anchovies (in a criss-cross pattern is traditional), then bake as on
page 127
.

Tomato and anchovy
A variation on pissaladière using Quick Tomato Sauce (see
page 36
) instead of onions, and with anchovy fillets as a topping. Tear basil leaves over and drizzle the whole lot with olive oil before baking.

Completely plain pizza bases
These are good served with soup or dips. Prick the bases all over with a fork, drizzle with a little olive oil and strew crunchy sea salt and some dried or fresh thyme over the surfaces before baking.

My mother made ‘pizzas’ out of baguettes right through the 1970s and I can’t lose my taste for them. If you don’t have time to make dough, they’re the ideal solution.

Simply cut a baguette into lengths, halve it as if you were making a sandwich and squish each half flat with the palm of your hand. You could take out some of the bread, leaving only a crusty shell, but this is not entirely necessary because the bread mops up the tomato sauce beautifully. Put the bread on a baking sheet, cover with tomato sauce and toppings of your choice, then bake at about 180°C/Gas Mark 4 for 7-10 minutes.

Just like meat and vegetables, fruit can be made into pasties, pies and wonderful tarts. Crisp flaky pastry is a great foil for soft fruit. I almost always use puff pastry, but you could choose shortcrust (see
pages 110
-
11
) instead.