homemade pizza pockets

This post is brought to you by DON Smallgoods.

Being a school mum is taking some getting used to.  When will I adjust to being the mum and not the sitting-in-the-front-row-raising-my-hand-so-high-my-bum-leaves-the-seat student?  I felt nervous waiting outside the Big Sister’s first parent-teacher interview a few weeks back, my nerves were probably not aided by the incident.

In many ways the Big Sister and I are very similar. She’s also a teacher’s approval-seeking, suck-up of a kid, which makes me worry for her teenage years.  I know what happens to approval-seeking, suck-ups: they have their angst-ridden teenage poetry published in the school year book at the Year Coordinator’s request.  Yep, suck-up AND social pariah.

We’re both not very good with our personal possessions.  The Big Sister lost her ridiculously expensive school jumper on its first wear and she’s on her second hat.  I’m not good at looking after my things either.

Tuckshop has changed a lot since the finger buns and redskins of my day, but it inspires the same excitement in the Big Sister as it did in me years ago.  Tuckshop offerings now include hash browns and sushi, but the change in fare is not the biggest difference: the Big Sister’s school tuckshop does online ordering, no handwritten orders or correct change required!

Last week while I was feeling nostalgic for old school tuckshop, I asked which were your favourite memories.  You miss frozen milk, pizza roundas, 1 cent choc buds, crumbed sausages, hot cheese rolls, salad sandwiches (really Sarah?), coffee buns, pineapple donuts, kopiko lollies, sausage rolls, sunny boys and pashio flavoured Orchy juice.

I can’t promise that pashio-flavoured anything is likely to make a resurgence but I do have very good news for you.  If you, like many of my readers, miss a tuckshop pizza pocket, you can make them easily at home!  The best part is you can fill them with your favourite stuff and not the sparse kabana of yore.

homemade pizza pockets

Ingredients:
For the dough:
1 teaspoon dry yeast
475g ’00’ flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tbs milk powder
1 tbs sugar
2 tbs olive oil
330ml warm water

For the filling:
tomato paste
mozzarella cheese
your favourites:
salami
kabana
chorizo
ham
mushrooms
olives

Method:
Combine the water, yeast and sugar in a small bowl. Set aside for 5 minutes or until foamy. Combine the flour, milk powder and salt in a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Add the yeast mixture and oil. Use a butter knife to mix until combined. Then use your hands to bring the dough together in the bowl.
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Lightly oil a bowl (to stop the dough from sticking).  Return the dough to the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and set aside in a warm, draught-free place to rise for 30 minutes or until dough doubles in size.
Once risen, cut the dough into four and working one quarter at a time, work the dough into an oval shape.
Brush each oval with tomato paste and sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.  Top half of each oval with your favourite topping combination.
Fold the oval in half.  Seal the pizza pocket by using a rolling motion, starting in the middle of the crescent and moving towards the fold.
Bake in a preheated 210ºC oven for 15 - 20 minutes.

A little word on choosing your toppings:  the secret to a good pizza pocket is not going overboard with toppings and avoiding wet toppings (like pineapple) that will make the dough soggy.  

what is your favourite tuckshop memory?

what kind of student were you?

front row nerd or back row badass?