Can't cook, CAN cook. (Emergency Dinners)

Member Name: Otjiwarotji

Product:	Emergency Dinners
Date:	24/11/01 (150 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very easy, tastes lovely, inexpensive

Disadvantages: is not really a pizza, you will wnat to eat more

I am not the worlds greatest cook! In fact I might be the worlds worst, very little patience coupled with practically no skill doesn’t make me someone who springs to mind, when cookery advice is sought. When I was at school I was the only person in my class who failed the first cookery lesson, by burning my toast and exploding my boiled egg. It went downhill after that and I was more often than not relegated to tidying out the domestic science store cupboard where I would close the door and stuff my face full of raisins, while the rest of the class baked cakes and whisked souffles to their hearts content. I was naive enough to be flattered at first when I was elected store cupboard monitor! Ah the innocence of youth.

This was 30 years ago mind you, and with the advent of Marks and Spencer ready to serve meals and Captain Birds Eyes wide variety I get by. But I will never be able to compete with Jamie Oliver. However what I have done is learnt a little, by trial and error. My poor partner has tasted most of those errors. On the odd occasion when I find a recipe which doesn’t throw me into a decline trying to follow it and I manage to produce something which actually gets all eaten up I carefully write down the recipe and keep it in my “what shall we have tonight” file.
Its not a very thick file and many of the recipes within are extremely basic and simple.

However there is one recipe in particular which I drag out every time I have friends round for tea and it always works and is always well received and tasty and that is why I wanted to share it. Let me tell you first how I came by this simple recipe....

It was at school, one day we had a student teacher instead of Mrs “let Janet tidy the cupboard” and she was a very patient young woman, who gave us this recipe and actually spent some time showing me how instead of shouting “ not like THAT” and I proudly took my effort home, instead of th
rowing it in the nearest waste bin before I got home and everyone loved it! I was so proud .. I COULD cook after all. Sadly she was only with us a couple of weeks and her influence didn’t last long and I found myself back in the cupboard every domestic science lesson. It wasn’t wasted, I have the tidiest kitchen cupboards in the universe.

I have a recipe too it is an idiot proof guide to
MISS SIMMONS SCONE BASE PIZZA

Pizza! Is that all she can come up with, I hear you cry, but bear with me, it’s a little different, more like a flan type thing really. It may not be your usual idea of gourmet food, but in my house anything which doesn’t involve a tin opener or a microwave IS very much gourmet food! I just hope you can follow my instructions as I don’t know many of those technical terms, like weigh and blend and saute.

THE INGREDIENTS ( OK that’s a fairly technical term )
Oh and I haven’t gone metric yet, sorry! Maybe you can convert it.

SCONE BASE

8 oz of self raising flour
2 oz soft margarine
1/4 pint of milk
a pinch of salt

SAUCE ( yes sauce, but don’t panic if you can’t make sauce if Jan can you can OK?)
1/4 pint milk
½ oz plain flour
4 oz strong cheddar cheese grated
pinch of salt and a pinch of ground black pepper

GARNISH
If you are veggy leave out the bacon ( but I guess that would have occurred to you if you’re a vegetarian wouldn’t it?)

4 rashers of lean rindless unsmoked back bacon
2 medium tomatoes or 1 tin of tomatoes ( very well drained)
1 large peeled onion ( tip: if peeling an onion is a bit fiddly for you, use a slightly lager onion and remove the top inner layer with the skin - see I think of almost everything)
4 oz largish mushrooms peeled and sliced
2 oz stuffed olives (optional)
2 or 3 ounces of grated cheese

also needed, a rolling pin, a flat n
on stick oblong baking tray about 12" x 8", a milk pan a big mixing bowl and an oven heated to gas mark 6 or kind of medium to hottish!

Oh and a lot of space so you don’t get flour in your carpet, all over the cat and in your shoes!

Now for the err.... way to do it, what’s the word ah yes...

METHOD
THE SCONE BASE

Sieve the flour into your mixing bowl (what! I never said you needed a sieve, well you know now!) Add the pinch of salt and then rub in the margarine.
Do I need to tell you what that means? This is where the student teacher was very patient, she showed me how to cut the marg into small pieces, throw it in the flour and with cool hands rub it between your fingers kind of rubbing lumps of it together until it breaks down and the whole thing looks like breadcrumbs. If you already know this and I imagine you will, ignore the above, unless you’ve already read it, in which case, just mutter things like “ how stupid does she think I am?”
Then pour in your 1/4 pint of milk and stir it with a wooden spoon until you van pick it up in one lump.

Then pick it up, and pick up the bits which fell on the floor too and if the floors clean stick them back on the lump which you now throw onto a well floured board ( I throw it onto a well floured work top, because I haven’t got a big board.
Then you knead it, lightly ( just give it a few squeezes and thumps) and then you roll it.
No don’t roll it along the floor, its dirty someone’s been dropping bits of scone mix down there and then standing in it.

Roll it until it is about 2" larger than your baking tray.
Grease your tray and lift the pastry mix by folding half of it back over your rolling pin and lowering it GENTLY onto the tray, it will be too big, or it should be.
Then trim it with a knife, its quite safe it doesn’t have to be a very sharp one and leave about 1" over
lapping the tray on each side. Brush the overhanging bit with milk and then fold the edge twice so it forms a slightly raised edge. Now put it to one side (away from the cat) and now comes the magic bit...

MAKING THE CHEESE SAUCE
In your small non stick milk pan pour your cold milk then sieve the plain flour into it, while stirring with your trusty wooden spoon and keep stirring it while you light the ring under it on a very low heat and keep stirring so it doesn’t go lumpy.... WHAT it IS lumpy? Never mind it won’t be soon.

Now as it begins to warm up, gradually add the grated cheese and the seasoning and continue to stir it all the time and as the cheese melts into the milk and flour base it will get thicker and creamier and you need to keep it on a low heat and keep stirring for about 4 or 5 minutes until it is thick enough to completely coat the spoon, really thick so you could spread it on bread.
Ok now you put it to one side to cool a bit.
Don’t eat any.
I said DON’T eat ANY. Because if you do you will find it is so tasty and yummy that you will eat all the sauce and there won’t be any left for your lovely pizza and I have given you the exact amount to cover the base.... Oh go on then but just a tiny taste.

OK now we are going to get creative, yes now is the time to let your artistic juices flow and turn your supper into a work of art.

Prepare your topping.
Cut the bacon into strips lengthwise, nice wide strips.
Slice your tomatoes ( yes even if they are tinned ones slice them)
Slice your onion into nice rings
Slice your mushrooms leaving them nice and chunky.

By now the sauce will be cool enough to pour onto the base. It will be very thick so once you have placed it on the base you will need to spread it very gently so as not to tear the scone base, using a spatula ( Ok, a knife then)

Now add the topping. I usually put the bacon on first on a kin
d of criss cross design then fill in all the little square gaps with the tomato, mushroom and onion, then add the stuffed olives and finally sprinkle the remaining grated cheese on top.
Brush the slightly raised edge with milk.
And bake for 25 - 30 minutes in the centre of oven.

VOILA !!!!!!
It tastes so savoury and cheesy and nice. It is lovely hot, fresh from the oven. Allegedly it’s just as good cold but we have never had any left to try out this theory! Serve with a plain and simple salad, or you could just have it on its own, its so filling you don’t really need anything else. This recipe is supposed to serve 6 as a snack or 4 as a meal but between the 2 of us we always polish off the lot at one sitting!

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