Healthy and delicious
Get a baking tray or brownie tin and generously line it with parchment paper. Then spread the “dough” onto the paper and pat down with the spatula. Put another sheet of parchment over it and smooth out the cauliflower with your flat hands so that it spreads out to about half an inch inch thick. You can set this aside and chill it (even overnight), while the sauce is cooking away.
Cook the base on its own for about 20 minutes at 200 degrees/gas 6. It will start to look a little pale golden on top. Lift up the paper to check the underneath is okay. The edges may char a bit, but this is fine. Set aside to cool down.
Heat up the olive oil and sweat the garlic, onion and red pepper. Do this for a few minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer over gentle heat for about 20 minutes. Remove the bay leaf, and when the sauce has cooled down, blitz until smooth in a blender. This will make too much sauce, but it can be frozen so you have some ready to go next time you want a homemade pizza sauce that’s a bit fruitier than normal.
Cut the courgette on a mandolin, or very finely with a knife. Toss with a little olive oil and salt and pepper.
When you are ready to do the final 10 minutes of cooking, spread a few tablespoons of sauce onto the pizza base, then top with slivers of courgette and scatter some goat’s cheese on top. Bake for another 10 minutes, until the cheese is just starting to melt.
Allow to cool and settle and serve. This is just as good cold, if not better.
KEDGEREE LIGHT
Serves 4
1 tbsp olive oil
2 bunches spring onions, chopped
1 tbsp mild curry powder
150g mushrooms, finely sliced
300g brown basmati rice
Approximately 600ml vegetable stock
100g frozen peas
4 eggs
To garnish
Smoked mackerel
Chopped cherry tomatoes
Handful pistachio nuts
Bunch coriander or parsley
Heat the olive oil in a heavy-based saucepan and sweat the spring onions with the curry powder. Mix well, but be careful as it will burn quickly. Have the mushrooms ready to go in, as they will add some moisture to the pan. Then add the rice. Mix well so the grains are well coated and then add the stock. Put a tight fitting lid on the pot and cook for about 30 minutes over a gentle heat. Remove the lid; practically all of the water should be gone at this stage. Add the peas and put the lid back on and leave it to sit and steam. You can add the raw eggs now and stir them around. The heat will cook them, but if you feel you’ve lost too much temperature, you can heat it up for another minute or so.
If it’s too dry, add a splash of water from a boiled kettle. Or you can boil the eggs separately and serve them on top of the rice, with the chopped coriander, nuts, bits of smoked fish, cherry tomatoes, or even some avocado.
Whatever the troops fancy.
The Fresh Energy Cookbook by Natalia Rose and Doris Choi is available on amazon.com
DOMINI RECOMMENDS: Diana Henry’s book on preserving, Salt, Sugar, Smoke, is lovely to flick through as you contemplate a quiet January that could feature all the preserving you never did in December
