The Annual Junk Food Festival

Food is one of the things that Mr Fork and I often disagree about. An example of this divide: Mr Fork's favourite food is breakfast from a tin. Cold reconstituted bacon straight from the tin? That is just weird. Mr Fork attributes this to being from Telford but I am not so sure. Nottingham in the early nineties was not the culinary playground it is today. Instead of Sat Baines, in those days we had the Maid Marion cafe which still haunts me with memories of an appalling breakfast eaten more than twenty years ago.

In deference to his odd eating habits, I promised Mr F several years back that I would cook him whatever he wanted on his birthday. The first year, he asked for a meatball sub. Disgusted with his choice, I resolved to make him the pimpest, most pretentious meatball sub ever to have been created. A quick trip to Borough Market later and a tradition was born. Posh Texas fries and a year off followed, bringing us to this year's challenge: stuffed crust pizza.

I decided to make two pizzas. The idea for the first was easy. It needed to have a steak on it. I was channelling Xzibit and I knew Mr Fork would not be able to resist the idea of stuffed crust steak pizza. The second was harder but eventually inspired by a bag of peppers and a special offer on goats cheese.

A half-sized quantity of Jamie Oliver's pizza dough recipe made more than enough for two giant pizza bases. Mr Fork was in charge of rolling out the bases so that he could roll them as thick as he wanted them (another point of contention: his love of thick cake-like, deep pan pizzas). A couple of cloves of garlic were fried in good olive oil, tinned tomatoes added and the whole thing simmered for ten minutes before being strained through a sieve. At this point, Mr Fork tactfully left the room to allow the real creativity to commence.

Pizza 1: Blue cheese stuffed steak pizza

A slice of bleu d'Auvergne was crumbled round the edge and rolled into the crust. Tomato on the base was followed by a handful of shimeji mushrooms and half a big mozzarella. This went onto the top shelf of an extremely hot oven for fifteen minutes. Just before it was done, I chucked a handful of salt into a grill pan and cranked up the hob to as hot as it would go. Forty-five seconds on each side was all the steak needed for super-rare awesomeness to be achieved. Chucking on a handful of rocket and artfully-arranged slices of steak completed the first part of the challenge. Whilst Mr Fork made happy noises, I moved on to pizza number two.

Pizza number two: Spanish stuffed crust pizza

Padron peppers inspired pizza number two. Fried in oil till they were just starting to soften and then salted, they went on to the tomato base with more tomatoes, this time sun-blushed, and a sprinkling of thyme leaves. Having considered getting chorizo, I opted instead for some chorizo-style cooking sausages. I wanted a crumblier texture and milder taste to complement rather than overpower the peppers. Thin slices of mild, crumbly goats cheese finished off the toppings. The rest of the mozzarella went in the crust and, just as pizza one was coming out of the oven, in went pizza two, also for fifteen minutes.

The result: Mr Fork was so happy with his pizzas, he said he would marry me. An empty promise, given we are already wed. He also agreed to limit his consumption of cake pizza to days when I am away.  I can live with that. He is already planning for next year and we are already arguing about whether he is allowed to choose items from the menu at Chili's. Better start practising the jingle.