Prep. Ahead Family Meals–Tortilla Pizzas

This is another really easy one and great way to use up any leftover veg. I planned this specialfially as we had half a pack of tortillas left from the week before’s Spicy Fajita Wraps, so didn’t add them to the shopping list this week. It’s definitely a money saver planning ahead.
For the tomato pizza topping, I heated a carton of value passata along with a splodge of tomato puree, a splash of red wine, pepper, dried herbs, crushed garlic and a pinch of sugar to take the acid away from the tomatoes. Leave this to simmer on the hob for between 20 and 40 minutes until it begins to thicken. Store in a sealed tub or jar. You can freeze this too if you wanted to make a bigger batch. As for the toppings, choose your favourites. We were lucky enough to have a lovely chorizo brought back from Spain for us (much more useful than a straw donkey!) and as a family, we seem to enjoy the salty flavours of this combined with pineapple – very American I know! I also sliced red peppers and mushrooms. Once all the ingredients are prepped, seal into a bag and refridgerate. You could also grate cheese, or pull apart Mozzerella at this stage too, but I’d bag it separately. It’s as easy to simply grate the cheese from the packet on the night in question.

I was lucky enough to have been sent an Oxo Goodgrips Simple Mandoline Slicer (£40) last year and have been using it intermittently ever since, especially when everything needs to be cut to the same thickness, but when there’s lots of prep. to be done, it really comes in handy. I use it on both hard and soft vegetables and also the chorizo – it’s so hard to use a knife to chop chorizo thinly, but the mandoline has several thickness settings, so is perfect. It also has a lock facility with the blade closed so you won’t have any nasty accidents when washing up! The good grips rubber does its job of holding the mandoline in place on the surface too. So while I wouldn’t use it to chop everything, it certainly has its place and makes life easier when getting ahead!

On the night, simply add your tomato paste to your pizzas, top, grate cheese over and put onto a hot baking tray into a hot oven for a few minutes. Keep checking on it: you don’t want to burn the edges. Oh, and open that can of pinapple pieces too!
I’ll continue to post my weekly meal planner recipes for the next week or so, to get you started (!), then just update an odd new one every now and then. Please feel free to comment at the bottom of the post if you have any questions or comments about the posts, or any requests for meals!
Disclaimer: Although I was sent products to try, all views and opinions are entirely my own, truthful and honest.