Sunday Night Pizza: with figs, honey and rocket pesto

One of the lovely things that happened to me during the last two years of Covid has been a very simple thing. A group of us who years ago used to meet for Sunday night pizza (and red wine) in Melbourne started to make Sunday night pizza at home or to report why we were cooking something else and what it was. It has provided a great reason to catch up virtually every Sunday be it just briefly or to share and explore current issues.

This week for my Sunday night pizza I made one that focused on some fresh figs I wanted to use. Stephanie told me that figs went with white cheese, rocket and something sweet like sugar. So that’s what I did including some mushrooms. For the sweetness I dribbled on some Beechworth honey I was lucky to receive for Christmas from my neighbours Elina and Graeme. Thanks Elina and Graeme! 

Ingredients

1 Wattle Valley wholemeal wrap

Sacla rocket pesto

Ricotta

Swiss brown mushrooms

Fresh figs

Honey

Mode

Preheat oven to 220c.

Spread rocket pesto as a base on the wrap

Add ricotta and spread as next layer

Slice mushrooms and add to cover other layers

Chop figs and add on top

Using a metal spoon heated in hot water drizzle honey over the pieces of figs

Cook for 12 minutes 

Eat with delight at the tastes

Chicken with tomato, basil, capers and olives

At some point the last week I saw a headline somewhere for a recipe including chicken, tomatoes and capers. I didn't read the recipe as it was behind a paywall but I immediately thought of a couple of my recent recipes inspired by Mediterranean cooking in Sicily, Calabria (and Greece). Magna Graecia indeed! 

This time the recipe uses a mixture of large and small green and black olives which I bought locally, as well as chicken thighs which I think give better flavour than breasts for such dishes. I enjoyed the final product with some gnocchi and Parmesan. 

Ingredients

Olive oil

2 spring onions

4 cloves garlic crushed

900 gr chicken thighs

1 can (400 gr) diced tomatoes

2 heaped tbs mixed olives

3 tsp capers

3-4 tbs chopped fresh basil

Water as needed 

Mode

Heat the oil in a pan large enough to simmer all the ingredients

Chop the chicken

Chop the spring onion

Crush the garlic

Lightly fry the garlic, and spring onion

Add the chicken 

Stir fry until chicken sealed 

Add the tomatoes,  capers and olives and stir to combine

Chop basil and add it and stir to combine

Turn down heat and simmer. 

While cooking add water as needed for consistency

Simmer until everything tender and the sauce reduced

Sardines with tomatoes, olives, celery and leek

This dish, like my last similar recipe, is inspired by Mediterranean cooking in Sicily, Calabria (and Greece). Magna Graecia indeed! This time the recipe uses mammoth green olives which I was given as a present, a leek I needed to cook and the fish component was comprised of fresh filleted sardines. This week’s heat delayed my cooking but now that the cool has come (along with rain, thunder, lightning and hail) I can get on with it. I doubled the tomatoes in this recipe as the addition of the leek required this.  While cooking I also added gradually about a cup of water to keep the consistency as I wanted it.

Last time I cooked the earlier variant of the recipe I said I felt like I was in Greece. My friend Letizia said she felt she was in her homeland when she read the recipe. What will she think this time? Despite the green olives I still feel that I am in Greece (or Magna Graecia) and indeed wonder if I will ever get to Sicily or even Greece again.  

Ingredients

Olive oil

2 stalks celery including leaves

1 leek

3 cloves garlic crushed

2 cans (400 gr) diced tomatoes

10 mammoth green olives

3-4 tbs chopped fresh basil

1 tbs capers

400 gr fresh filleted sardines

1 cup water

Mode

Heat the oil in a pan large enough to simmer all the ingredients

Chop the celery

Finely slice leek

Crush the garlic

Lightly fry the garlic, celery and leek

Add the tomatoes and olives and stir occasionally

Chop basil and add it and capers

Turn down heat and simmer for about 5 minutes

While cooking add water as needed for consistency

Add the sardines and stir to cover the fish

Cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes

Swordfish in tomatoes with olives and capers

I got my inspiration for this from a regular newsletter I get from eatingwell.com  And they say they were inspired by Mediterranean cooking in Sicily and Calabria. Ah Magna Graecia! I didn’t follow their recipe exactly and amongst other changes substituted their green olives with my favourite mammoth black ones. I served it one evening with roast vegetables and another with gnocchi whereas the original recipe had polenta as a core element. Mine tasted like I was in Athens. 🇬🇷

Ingredients

Olive oil

2 stalks celery including leaves

3 cloves garlic crushed

1 can (400 gr) diced tomatoes

8 mammoth black olives

3-4 tbs chopped fresh basil

1 tbs capers

400 gr swordfish

Mode

Heat the oil in a pan large enough to simmer all the ingredients

Chop the celery

Crush the garlic

Lightly fry the garlic and celery

Add the tomatoes and olives and stir occasionally

Chop basil and add it and capers

Turn down heat and simmer for about 5 minutes

Add the swordfish steaks and stir to cover the fish

Cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes

Prawn pizza

Another weekend another pizza but not one for the Sunday pizza group. I had bought some prawns for a pizza on Friday and couldn’t resist making something with them on Saturday. It was delicious! How grateful am I to have fresh seafood on hand at my local Piedimonte’s! 

Ingredients

1 wholemeal Lebanese bread

Sundried tomato pesto

Mozzarella 

Cooked prawns about 250 gr

Green pepper

Mushrooms 

Mode

Preheat oven to 220c

Spread pesto sauce on the Lebanese bread

Slice Mozzarella and add

Place prawns over sauce and cheese

Slice mushroom and sprinkle over

Slice green peppers and sprinkle over 

Bake in 220c oven for 12 minutes

Enjoy on a Saturday or Sunday (or any time). 

Swordfish pie

Well, dear friends of Sunday night pizza from of old (and anyone else who is reading), there is no pizza tonight! Instead last night I cooked a #godoggies pizza which was lovely to eat but with unsatisfactory outcomes for the team I was barracking for on behalf of my mother who lived a long drought supporting them.  

Tonight instead became a swordfish pie night. It ended up being a simple combination of swordfish, rocket pesto, red capsicum and spring onions in puff pastry, but the simple is delicious especially teamed with lemon roasted vegetables as it was. With those flavours I could have been in Greece, though who knows when that may be possible or advisable for any of us?

Ingredients 

250 gr fresh swordfish fillet

2 sheets frozen puff pastry

1 tbs rocket pesto

2 spring onions

1/2 red capsicum

Poppyseeds 

Mode

Preheat oven to 350c

Remove pastry to thaw

Peel and chop spring onions

Roughly chop capsicum

Once pastry thawed place one sheet on bottom of baking dish

Place swordfish on pastry

Spread pesto on fish

Sprinkle spring onion over

Add red capsicum

Place second sheet of pastry over ingredients

Cut off excess and form edges of pie

Add pastry decorative features if desired

Sprinkle with poppyseeds

Cook in 360c oven fir 45 minutes

Lemon potatoes and carrots

Whoops! I had a plan of roast vegetables and swordfish pie for dinner tonight. Then a question on Twitter from @sandrodemaio about what everyone was cooking made me realize that timely cooking of the vegetables was necessary so a sort of compromise Greek lemon vegetables was the result. 

Ingredients

2 large potatoes 

2 carrots

Olive oil

Dry rosemary

6 cloves garlic

1 lemon

Mode

Preheat oven to 220c

Chop potatoes and carrots as desired

Place in ovenproof dish

Sprinkle with rosemary

Crush garlic cloves and add

Douse in olive oil

Cook in 220c oven for 30 minutes

Meanwhile juice the lemon

Pour the juice over vegetables

Return to 350c oven for 45 mins