Hasty Halloween Pizza

Halloween pizza, smothered in blood and topped with severed fingers, eyeballs, fangs, zombie slime, fingernails - delicious!

I know this is a bit unseasonal but I'm still catching up!

Reviewing their work

So Halloween came around and we had moved, so we don't know what the neighbourhood is like for trick or treating. With that in mind I had arranged for Lauren to go trick or treating on our old street with one of our neighbours, but unfortunately they fell ill and we had to cancel.

All this made for tears at pick up time from school...no trick or treating..no chocolate...no fun..oh dear!

Emergency mum brain had to kick in and off we went to the Co-op for supplies.

While I rustled up a Halloween Pizza, Tony and Lauren prepared the pumpkin.

I didn't want tea to turn into a load of sweet stuff and no health so I put my imagination into overdrive and had a root through the fridge for some vegetable accompaniments and this is what we came up with.

Halloween Pizza with Witches Noses, Witches Warts, Toadstools & Zombies Eyelids

Lauren with her witches nose!

In the bread maker I put 200 g strong white flour, 7g fast acting yeast, pinch of salt, 140ml warm water and a tablespoon of olive oil and out it on the dough function. If you haven't got a bread maker you will need to mix all the ingredients in a bowl until you form a ball of dough and then knead for a good 10 minutes until smooth. Put the dough in a bowl, cover with a damp tea towel and leave in a warm spot to prove for about half an hour until it has doubled in size.

When the dough is risen, tip onto a lightly floured work surface and knead lightly. Next brush a baking tray with olive oil, flatten out the dough gently, placed on the tray and tease it out until it covers the surface, being careful not to make any holes.

As it was last minute I used a jar of pasta sauce - garlic and basil as my "blood", but if you have more time you could cook down some tomatoes, onion, basil and garlic to make your own. Then we used chicken pieces with circles of peperoni as "eye balls", peperoni cut up as "severed fingers", spinach for "zombie slime", little prawns as "finger nails" and cut mozzarella into triangles for "fangs".

When you've completed your toppings bake in the oven at 200C/400F.GM6 for 15-20 minutes until bubbling and browned.

While I was making the pizza I par boiled some parsnips (quartered lengthwise) and then roasted them in the oven on a high heat, tossed in some olive oil until golden to be "witches noses", microwaved some frozen peas to be "witches warts" and sautéed some courgettes cut into half moons and sliced mushrooms to be "zombies eyelids and toadstools".

It wasn't a gourmet affair but plenty of vegetables were eaten and the pizza was delicious as home made pizza always is. The base was crisp and not too heavy or doughy and the toppings were juicy and a nice variety of sweet tomato, irony spinach and mildly spicy sausage.

Once the eating was over we played some games - apple bobbing of course and then a game Lauren had learnt from Brownies. We hung some ring doughnuts from the ceiling and then the competition ensued to see who could eat theirs first without using their hands. As Tony can fit a whole doughnut in his mouth in one go there wasn't much competition, however, Lauren came a respectable second and I gave up! You end up with a messy face and you invariably lose the last bit to the floor.

And there we have it, Halloween was saved, a good first Halloween for our new house and a happy little girl.