Three Years Ago Today.......

Pizza Base Recipe

As requested by Jelena, here is the recipe for pizza base that I make:

300g Strong Bread Flour
1 teaspoon Instant Yeast
1 teaspoon Salt
1 tablespoon Olive Oil
200ml Warm Water

1. Put the flour into a large bowl, then stir in the yeast and salt
2. Make a well, pour in the warm water and olive oil and bring together with a wooden spoon until you have a soft, fairly wet dough.
3. Knead dough for +-10 minutes
4. Brush a little Olive Oil on the dough and cover with a tea towel. Put the dough aside for a minimum of one hour (I usually make the dough in the morning to use that evening). Make sure you put it somewhere warm as this helps the dough rise
5. When the dough has risen to at least double its size, you can break off about a fist size and roll it out on a floured surface. Don't forget to brush some olive oil on the base before you put the tomato paste on and don't decorate all the way to the edges, there still needs to be a crust.
6. Bake at 240C/fan 220C/gas mark 8 for 8-10 minutes. I sometimes find that I do need to bake it a little longer, you know that it is ready when you tap the crust and it sounds hollow.

The pan that I use for pizza looks like this. I don't think that it is an absolute necessity, but it is handy. The one I bought was from Asda and was under £2. If you have any questions, just ask.

FAB Pizza

I miss being able to pick up the phone and order a FAB pizza. FAB for those of you that don't live in South Africa means Feta, Avocado Pear and Bacon. Its been 2.5 years since I have been able to just pick up the phone and order one, and if I mention this to a British person they will look at me as if I have 7 heads. Its not an unusual pizza in SA. Although here in the UK you can order sweetcorn and a fried egg on your pizza, now that to me is strange. So, on Friday night we had home made pizza's, and I had Feta, Avo, Bacon, Garlic, Peppadews, Olives and Caramalised Onion. Can I just say Yummy, yummy, yummy! And we let James make his own pizza, he has pineapple, orange peppers and bacon, and then he ate it all. We took photos of James making his pizza, so now we just have to wait until we can upload them.

Update

So our computer has still crashed and I have about 100 photo's on my camera to load. We are using my SIL's computer for now until we buy a new one. So here is an update of everything that we have done since I last posted.

In October we went to Butlins in Skegness. It was lovely. I was a little worried before we went that it was going to be very Chavvy (yes, I am a snob), as the price was really good, but here is my review of Butlins:
Butlins is great if you have kids - the entertainment consists of Bob the Builder, Barney, etc. But the swimming pools and funfair was a lot of fun. The food was ok, it was kind of like eating in a Tesco's Cafe every night, except that there was more choice and maybe slightly better quality. But for £153 for accomodation, entertainment, breakfast and dinner from Monday to Friday for all 3 of us, I really can't complain. We never took as many photo's as I would have liked, but that is because we were too busy having fun. James was sleeping like an Angel and hardly had a tantrum, there was just too much to do. There were Chav's (and Chav children that don't know about taking turns), and there were people there that could be Chav's, but have not allowed themselves to sink that low, and then there were 'normal' people. I did not feel like the place was over run. We had very basic accomodation, just a room and a bathroom, and the bed was very uncomfortable, but we never really expected much. We will consider Butlins for a holiday again, but next time we will upgrade our accomodation.

On our way back we stayed with Gareth's aunt in Liverpool and then on our way back to Bournemouth we stopped at the Land of Lost Content in Cravens Arm in Shropshire for lunch. The food was well priced, but huge and delicious. The museum however, was scary. It was cluttered and full of (crap) contents. And it had scary dolls whose eyes followed you every where, but then we did have lunch with Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and Michael Jackson all under a Disco ball.

Since we are back I have taken James to both the theatre and to the cinema and he sat through both shows.

We went to the Bournemouth Pier Theatre to watch Chris and Pui from Show Me Show Me, the show was almost 2 hours long, including a 20 minute interval and James sat through the whole show and clapped his hands and sang and danced. It was definately well worth the £6.50 we had to pay.

Yesterday I took James to watch Beverly Hills Chihuahua at the cinema. He loved it. He watched the entire movie. We took advantage of the Odeon Kids movie Club which means we paid £2.50 for both of us to go. Although James did have to sit on my lap at both the theatre and the cinema as they have the pop up seats and James is too light to keep the seats down.

And now I have to run because Gareth is home to study so James and I have to stay out of the house.

The Crash of 2009

Dear Any Readers,

I have not just stopped blogging again after blogging for a week, but our laptop has crashed and therefore I do not have access, except where I steal someone else's computer and seen as I am not in the habit of stealing I don't think that I will be online for a while.

Love,
Janine

Leaves, Clouds and Smiles

What is James pointing at?

Why, his Masterpiece of course!

Yes, he is very proud of himself for running off with the glue.......

And now its time for a rest.

Today's word was 'Leaves'

Today went better than yesterday.... no weather conditions, except for bright and sunny were felt in my house. James learnt to say leaves today. We went to the Woodland Walk this afternoon and must have spent a good 45 minutes throwing leaves in the air and chasing each other. We then took the actual walk, crunching the leaves under our feet (and using it to get rid of the dog poo that James had stood in) and spying on squirrels that were running up trees. We plan on going back tomorrow to collect some leaves and bring them back home to make a picture. Tomorrow's word is going to be clouds (assuming that there will be clouds in the sky - this is England after all), so hopefully tomorrow night I can display a picture made with leaves and cotton wool (clouds).

On the domestic front things went well. I even managed to do 2 loads of washing, and I hung them up to dry - that's impressive for me. Something I did learn today was that when your self esteem is at a low you should not sort of your clothes wardrobes.... um, yeah. I now realise just how much clothing I have, but how little actually fits me......... Its time to get back to those scales.