I had a craving for some mighty fine pizza and what better way to get it than to make it yourself! I couldn’t get the cheese to brown like they do at Pizza King though, maybe I’ll grill it next time instead of putting it in the oven. This pizza you see here has tomato paste, pepperoni, tomato, mushrooms, onion, basil leaves, bacon, pizza mix cheese, parmesan cheese, oregano and chilli flakes. I ate the whole thing to myself over the course of the day. Yum!

Preparation time: 1 hour, allow time for preparing pizza toppings.
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Serves: 3-4

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups of water
• 2 packs dry yeast (7-8 grams or 1/4 ounces)
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 cups flour (approx)
• olive oil

Method

1. Coat large bowl with olive oil and set aside.
2. Stir wate, yeast and sugar together. Let sit for 10 minutes so the yeast can do its thing.
3. Place 3 cups of flour in a large bowl and mix in salt.
4. Cover work surface with a cup of flour.
5. Mix/Pour olive 3-4tsp olive oil into yeast mixture and then pour into bowl with flour.
6. Stir until combined as much as possible then pour onto floured work surface.
7. Flour your hands and knead the dough untila smooth ball is formed. You may beed to add more flour as you go. This maya while (5-10 mins) depending on how awesome your kneading skills are.
8. Place dough into the oiled bowl, cover with cling wrap and then a kitchen towl. Let sit for 30 minutes.
9. Dough shoud have at least doubled in size by now, take the wrapping off and “punch” the dough down till its flatter. Let sit for another 30 minutes or so. The longer the you leave it the better it will be…suppossedly.
10. Use half the dough to form the pizza base, flattening it out on a pizza tray. Brush edges with olive oil.
11. Add spread tomato paste on and desired toppings and cook for approximately 15 minutes in the oven at 200 - 220 degrees celcius.

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Absolutely divine, my sister says as soon as I walk in the door. That my readers, is all the proof you need to verify the divinity of this simple pasta dish.

Now after a hard night’s training at taekwondo, my legs are buggered to the point where I’m too lazy to get up and go get the cook book where the recipe for this dish can be found. Thus I will just pluck it from my not so good memory, but fear not, it is quite a simple dish. Here goes…

Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 5-10 minutes and about 10 minutes for the pasta
Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 400 grams past (less pasta means more yummy sauce!)
• 5 ripe roma tomatoes, chopped roughly
• 400 grams bacon, thinly sliced, use fatty bits for more flavour
• 1 cup mushrooms, sliced (only because I put mushroom in all my pasta…)
• 3 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
• 250ml thick cream (add more for extra creamy goodness)
• greated/shaved parmesan cheese
• olive oil

Method

1. Cook pasta as per instructions on packet.
2. Heat olive oil in a pot, add the bacon and fry until brownish.
3. Add tomatoes and fry for a minute, stirring frequently, then add mushrooms. Continue frying and stirring until the tomatoes begin to soften ever so slightly.
4. Turn heat to medium and stir in thick cream, let it simmer for a couple of minutes so the flavours fuse together.
5. Whack the pasta in and stir it around.
6. Take off heat, stir in parsley. Serve topped with parmesan cheese.

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One of Darwin’s most famous and awarded restaurants - Hanuman. It specialises in Thai Nonya and Indian cuisine with prodigous use of spices and lovely sauces. There happens to be one in Alice Springs but I haven’t been to that city since I was a wee little toddler. I’m sure it is just as good.

I stuffed myself full on Sunday to the point where I could see beads of sauce squeezing their way out of my belly button. The food was excellent and there are plenty of wait staff catering to your needs. Didn’t take that long to get our meals given the amount of people there, I’ve had to wait longer to get pizza…

We began our meal with some butter naan bread. Nice and hot with a fabulous aroma.

A starter plate of kashmiri chicken tikka (i.e. tandoori chicken) which was quite filling in itself. Lovely spices and tender pieces of chicken.

The mains were, from left to right, red lentil dahl (I think, didn’t pay too much attention to it…), butter chicken and a “mean moolie” of barramundi fillets. I have no idea what mean moolie is supposed to mean but it was my favourite dish of the night. The butter chicken was very spicy and forced me to break into a light sweat…damn you. And the vegetarian dish was ok but didn’t really cater to my carnivorous ways, I’m sure the vegetarians would love it though.

Hanuman (Darwin) is located at:

Holiday Inn Esplanade
93 Mitchell Street
Darwin, Northern Territory
Phone: (08) 8941 3500

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