Be hon­est: how many times have you ordered a pizza and when it comes, and you’re eat­ing it, you think, “This tastes like noth­ing.” Then you start to think that you paid, what, 8 pounds for it, 15 or so pounds if you got two, and it tastes like… noth­ing. Plus you have to get rid of those boxes. The whole sce­nario is annoy­ing. And the only rea­son you did it was to save time because you got home late from the sta­ble or the skat­ing rink and it was all you could think of. Well, that can be his­tory. All you have to do is invest a lit­tle bit of time and a lit­tle bit of knead­ing, and a really fab­u­lous pizza is in your future. Trust me: if you hate to cook, have scram­bled eggs, but if you like to cook at ALL, don’t order another pizza, just do this:

Pizza at Home
(serves four today and four later in the week)

4 cups “strong flour”, like Hovis, plus more for dust­ing
2 cups-ish warm water
1 sachet pow­dered yeast (Hovis fast action is good)
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp dried thyme leaves
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tsp sea salt
olive oil for brushing

Veg­gies: thin-sliced red pep­pers, red onions, toma­toes
Cheeses: shred­ded com­mer­cial moz­zarella, sliced fresh moz­zarella, goats cheese
Meats: pro­sciutto, parma ham, salami, sausage
Sauces: fresh pesto, tomato sauce, harissa

Don’t be shy. I was shy about get­ting my hands messy, but it was fine in the end. Of course, I was with my intre­pid cook­ing friend Vin­cent when I made my maiden dough voy­age, but you can do it too. Just pre­tend that some­one brave is stand­ing beside you to guide you through the uncharted waters. Take off all your rings, bracelets and watch, wash your hands thor­oughly, and go.

Pour the flour into a large bowl. With a whisk, mix the yeast and sugar into the warm water (the tem­per­a­ture should be like that of a baby’s bot­tle of milk). Let the water and yeast sit for a bit while you find your herbs and scat­ter them onto the flour. Now begin to mix the herbs into the flour, add the salt, and the water should be ready: a bit bub­bly on top. Pour your­self a lit­tle mound of extra flour on a VERY clean coun­ter­top (I don’t have a pas­try insert, but some lucky peo­ple do). Pour about half your water onto the flour and DIG IN. Mix it with your hands in a sort of scoop­ing, rolling motion. It will stick to your hands like crazy, but don’t fret. It will come off. Add more water and keep mix­ing until the dough is elastic-feeling and sticky, but not liq­uidy. If you add too much water, don’t worry: add more flour. As Vin­cent says, “It’s its own thing, you can’t hurt it.” Grad­u­ally the ball will pick up most of the bits inside the bowl and then you know you’re done mix­ing. Does that make sense? It’s eas­ier to do than to describe, I’m finding!

When the dough is a nice sticky ball in the bowl, cover it with a clean dish­towel and leave it for about an hour and a half. All you have to do to get your hands clean is to dust them with lots of flour and rub them together: the dough gets dry and falls off, very neatly.

The dough should just about dou­ble in bulk. Then give it a few nice whacks with your fist and turn it out onto your very clean, flour-covered coun­ter­top. You should have enough for two piz­zas, so cut the dough in half and wrap one of them in plas­tic wrap to save in the fridge for the next time (this dough will stay nice and fresh for at least three days). Knead the dough, dust­ing with flour all the time, turn­ing the edges under and turn­ing the ball around so you’re con­stantly turn­ing under a new edge. Knead for about 10 minutes.

With a flour-covered rolling pin, roll out the dough into the shape of your pizza pan (I used a nice perforated-bottomed round pizza pan, but you can use any­thing, even a cookie sheet). Remem­ber to keep flour­ing the coun­ter­top so the dough does not stick.
Spread the dough out onto the pan. With a pas­try brush, brush olive oil over the whole surface.

Now you can top your pizza. Start with the sauce, whichever you choose (or all!). Then layer the veg­eta­bles over the sauce. Avery intel­li­gently pointed out that the onions should be under every­thing else, so they don’t just friz­zle and get black, since they’re not very liq­uidy. Add what­ever meats you like (or all! or none), and fin­ish with cheese. Bake in a hot oven (400-ish) for about 25 min­utes, or until the cheeses are nice and bub­bly. Voila.

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I guar­an­tee you that this pizza will be more savory, more fresh, and more nutri­tious than any­thing you could bring in. Plus cheaper, and your kitchen will smell cozy and invit­ing. And if I can do it, any­one can. I never bake, and I can tell you that I had to buy a new pas­try brush, and a rolling pin, just for the pur­pose of mak­ing this pizza. And I’m glad I did. Thank you, dear Vin­cent, for mak­ing it so easy and tempt­ing to do on my own. I have to say, a sil­i­cone pas­try brush is a dandy lit­tle item to have in your kitchen: it comes per­fectly, ele­gantly clean every time. I’m sure in no time I’ll be glaz­ing every flat sur­face in my home with egg white, but for now, olive oil on pizza crust is quite enough.

If you don’t want to go to the admit­ted bit of effort that a pizza takes, how about a nice shoul­der of pork? So inex­pen­sive and so deli­cious. And effort-free, nearly. And the cook­ing aro­mas will bring every­one in your house into the kitchen, ask­ing, “When do we eat?” Last night Avery was curled up in the chair in the kitchen, book in hand, and said, “Gosh, it’s cozy in here.”

Roast Shoul­der of Pork with Rose­mary and Gar­lic
(serves eight)

1 shoul­der of pork, rolled and tied

four stems fresh rose­mary, leaves removed and chopped
4 cloves gar­lic, chopped
juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp sea salt
sev­eral grinds of fresh black pep­per
1 tbsp olive oil

Mix all the mari­nade ingre­di­ents and smear (awful word) over the shoul­der of pork. Place in a bak­ing dish sprayed with non­stick spray. Roast at 350 degrees for at least two hours (if you turn the oven down lower it can roast even longer). Couldn’t be eas­ier, and the meat is sim­ply divine: ten­der, juicy, salty.

If you can get pea sprouts where you live, DO. I’m not 100% sure why they are called pea sprouts, when they look like noth­ing so much as lit­tle spinach leaves. But Marks and Spencer say they’re pea sprouts, and ever since I had them at E&O in Not­ting Hill, I have been devoted to them. You need a LOT to feed even three peo­ple, because like all green leaves, they cook down instantly into almost noth­ing. So count on a pack­age per per­son, at least. They are so good for you, too.

Asian Wilted Pea Sprouts
(serves four)

4 pack­ages pea sprouts (about 8 cups, loosely packed), washed and spun dry
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp mirin (Japan­ese rice wine)
juice of 1 lime
2 cloves gar­lic, finely minced

In a large skil­let, place all the sauce ingre­di­ents and sim­mer until gar­lic is nicely soft­ened. Pile all the greens into the skil­let and hold over low heat, lift­ing the greens with tongs until all have been coated with the sauce. The leaves will grad­u­ally wilt down to a frac­tion of their vol­ume. So sim­ple, so deli­cious. The stems have a lit­tle crunch and the leaves are silky and refreshing.

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All right, we’re off to make a lit­tle tour of the neigh­bor­hood that encloses our lat­est house pos­si­bil­ity. It’s a for­mer vic­arage, so the estate agents say, just below Ham­mer­smith Road. Not a loca­tion to make you sit up and sing, per­haps, and the house is so ridicu­lously over-priced that it makes you won­der if any­thing the estate agents say can pos­si­bly true. Maybe it’s not a vic­arage at all; maybe it’s the for­mer head­quar­ters of MI6. We are get­ting seri­ously fatigued by the house hunt. Even John, who pre­vi­ous to this excur­sion could have, I would say, looked at houses infi­nitely, is tired of the search. We have just two weeks before we leave for the sum­mer in Con­necti­cut and some­thing deep within me would like to have a house before we go. Wish us luck…