Spinach Olive Pizza

After beer bread for breakfast, which turned out to be a big hit in the family, my dad suggested I should  bake something for lunch. So I turned to food porn again on Tastespotting. The first thing I saw was pizza!

So lets trace back the first time I had good pizza. It might come as a surprise, but its actually Germany! While I was there for immersion about a year ago, pizza could be readily bought and most taste pretty good and cheap! Most of us lived with a host family within Münster itself, but a couple of my friends lived further out, in a village. So one day, after class we decided to check out the village. Since its a village and the train comes every hour, we stayed for dinner. With the guidance of Mel and Celeste's host father we made pizza!

Pizza is simple to make with the help of ready made dough. All you need is the toppings of your choice! Of course the star ingredient is spinach and garlic!

Ingredient ( 3 personal size pizza)

Ready made pizza base ( I don't know the exact size)

3 Tbs Tomato Paste

1 1/2 C Spinach

1/2 C Black Olives

1/2 C Pizza cheese ( Mixture of Mozzarella, Parmasan, Chedder)

Garlic ( as much as you like)

Sprinkle Oregano

Salt and pepper

Drizzle of Olive oil

1) Preheat oven at 220 Degrees.

2) Spread the tomato paste and place all the ingredients on the pizza.

3) Drizzle Olive oil before baking for about 15-20 mins or until crust turns slightly brown.

*4) Crack an egg before placing it in the oven and Tadah you have Pizza alla Bismark!

Oh yes, I sliced the beer bread from yesterday and added Butter, Parmesan, pepper and garlic and toasted it for about 8min. A nice hearty breakfast!

Savory and Sweet Palmiers

There is always a first to everything. Today is my first time baking with puff pastry. Its unbelievably EASY. Simply idot proof! I first wanted to play with puff pastry when I was reading the cook book that ah huat's mum gave me. In the book, its Pesto- Palmiers. I used olive spread instead because there are two bottles of olive spread from Greece sitting in my fridge and nobody seem to know what to do with it. I bought ready made puff pastry and simply used the recipe as a rough guide to what I should do.

I will not state exactly how much ingredients I used because its really base on estimation. Base on what I am able to remember,

Ingredients
175g of Puff pastry ( Which is about half a packet)
1.5 Tbs Olive spread ( Or Green/ Red Pesto)
Handful of Parmesan, to be placed on top of each Palmier.
1 egg yolk + 1Tbs water

Its as simple as roll (the puff pastry to about 3mm thickness), Spread ( Spread whichever spread you are using), fold ( Fold in both sides of the dough.)

Preheat the oven at 200 degrees.

Place the rolled up dough in the fridge for about 15min, so that it is easier to cut, alternatively if you have no problems cutting the dough, its alright to simply cut and put it in the oven. The pastry could also be kept in the freezer till you are ready to bake them.

Cut the pastry, brush each with egg wash and place some Parmesan on top before placing it in the oven

Bake for about 10-14 min or until pastry become golden brown.

Serve hot! Perfect as finger food for parties :)

I also tried making it sweet. Tried it with Jam and then with sugar cinnamon. Turned out to look like mini cookies.