Yelly Eats

Pizza night!

Yelly

There are benefits wanting to bake more savoury things.  I had a portion of gammon joint left in the freezer from New Year’s Day lunch and a can of pineapple rings lurking in my cupboard and fancied a pizza.  So off I went and made a pizza base from scratch!

Ingredients:

  • 300g strong bread flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 7g yeast
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 200g hot water

Directions:

I am using my trusty Kenwood Chef because my hands aren’t well today (oh the joy of recovering from carpal tunnel decompression surgery!) but this can be done by hand entirely!

In a bowl, place flour, yeast and salt (making sure the salt and yeast are on separate sides so that the salt doesn’t kill the yeast) and make a well in the middle.  In the well, place the oil and water and mix.  If using a mixer, on low speed, with a dough hook, mix the ingredients together.  When fairly combined, scrape the sides of the bowl and, still using the dough hook, mix the dough on medium speed for 5 minutes or until elastic and smooth.  The dough is going to be sticky so I add up to 3 heaping teaspoons of flour while the dough is kneaded.  If kneading by hand, on a floured surface, knead for about 10 minutes.  Turn the flour into a ball and cover with a tea towel and allow to rest for 30-45 minutes until the dough has risen.  You don’t really need to proof the dough if you’re making thin pizzas.

pizza dough

Preheat the oven to 220°C/200°C (fan).  Roll out the dough to your desired thickness (dough can be divided into 2 balls to make 2 10-inch thin crust pizzas).

desired thickness

Tip: I sprinkle a teaspoon of coarse semolina on the pan (which I line with baking parchment) so that the pizza dough doesn’t stick.  The semolina also adds an interesting texture to the dough.

semolina sprinkle

Top with whatever topping you wish.  I recommend using a pre-heated baking pan or a pizza stone if you have one for a crisper base.  Bake the pizza for 8-10 minutes until crisp.

topping favourites

When the timer buzzes, all you have to do is bring out the pizza, slice and enjoy!

pizza

Yelly Eats

First bake!

Yelly

I did say that my goal was to bake more so that I could blog more.

The first bake of the year is my take on the traditional stollen.  A stollen is described as a yeasted cake containing dried fruit and marzipan.  I love stollen!  While it is a joy to bake (the smell of dried fruit and mixed peel soaked in brandy is amazing!), sometimes, one needs instant gratification and a store-bought one provides the instant pleasure.  I was gutted however, when I found out that Lidl had run out completely of stollen AND stollen bites.  I don’t know about anyone else in the UK, but I think Lidl sources great stollen and panettone!  I’m not sure where they source their stollen from, but whoever makes that stollen, they have a cracking recipe.  The lack of store-bought stollen necessitated the baking (which wasn’t such a difficulty because baking stollen is a pleasure!).

I used Edd Kimber’s stollen recipe from his second book Say It With Cake (I have written about Edd Kimber’s recipes before.  I love his blueberry crumble pie and his red velvet cake recipe is to die for!).  Edd Kimber’s stollen recipe is probably my favourite recipe from all the stollen recipes so far.  I’ve been relatively successful with it (lately!).  But this year, instead of rolling the marzipan into a log to fill the center of the loaf, I’ve rolled the dough into a log with the marzipan forming a swirl pattern when the loaf was sliced.  I thought it would be good to spread the marzipan all over the bread to distribute it better so that you didn’t get a huge lump in the middle of the bread.  And I think it works!

I think this means I’m going to bake stollen again.  It doesn’t have to be Christmas for me to bake stollen, does it?

Stollen with marzipan swirl

Yelly Writes

A look back on 2014

Yelly

For the last few weeks, I’ve been saying that I can’t wait for 2014 to end because it has been the worst year.  I take that all back.

While it has been a difficult year, after looking back, it has been a year filled with amazing things: I went home to Manila twice; with my Abba’s amazing recovery, I have seen what I believe is a miracle; I am so very thankful for the support of family and friends (especially the friends I have made here), because your faith, optimism and positivity (and the occasional “it’s okay to go and cry”) has buoyed us and carried us through the difficult months; and I even managed to get myself on TV (for a total of 2 nanoseconds!)!

I am thankful for all the lessons I learned in 2014.  Because while it has been challenging, I learned a lot about myself, my faith has grown, my Abba is much, much better, my family is stronger together and we know that we truly love each other and I have learned that I am made of sterner stuff after all.  I know that I am truly, truly blessed.

I can’t wait to find out what 2015 will bring! 🙂

Happy New Year everyone!  May you all be so very, very blessed! 🙂

P.S.  Here’s a quick-fire list of my blogging goals for 2014: blog more, bake more so I can blog more, cook more so I can blog more, take more photos and post them on the blog…yes, the goal is to blog more!!!

Yelly Snaps

The Art of the Brick

Yelly

Do you know how painful it is to step on a LEGO™ brick?  It’s painful.  No.  Actually, it’s very painful.  And I know.  Because I’ve done it.  So many times.  Of course this was during my childhood.

It’s funny how a small, plastic brick could transport you to worlds you’d never known, make you more creative than you had ever imagined you’d be and entertain you to no end.  For hours.  LEGO™ has never lost its magic for me.  Anything connected to it excites me, makes smile, makes me giggle.  Because it brings me back to the carefree days of my childhood.  If you think about it, LEGO™ was the most amazing toy, if you were fortunate enough to have a set.

Nathan Sawaya is a New York-based artist who creates three-dimensional sculptures made completely out of LEGO™ bricks.  He has a touring exhibition called The Art of the Brick featuring his most popular LEGO™ creations.  I had the good fortune to be able to go and see all his sculptures.  And it was amazing!

The Art of the Brick

The taking of photographs was highly encouraged so take photographs I did!  I can’t really say which one was my favourite although his 3D version of Gustav Klimt’s Der Küss is a forerunner!  I’ve posted all the photos that I have on my Pinterest board, so feel free to have a look-see!

Gustav Klimt's The Kiss by Nathan Sawaya

 

Yelly Writes

Challenging myself

Yelly

I’ve been telling myself that I need to blog more often, more regularly.  That I need to add more content to my blog.

I have this amazing knack of biting off more than I can chew on a regular basis because I have this (almost masochistic) need to push myself and stretch my boundaries.  There are days when I am exhilarated by the challenges I put myself through (I was probably a circus animal of some sort in a previous life because I seem to enjoy jumping through hoops of various heights and sizes); but there are days when I just get completely overwhelmed and I wonder why I started the whole exercise!  I usually bang my head of a figurative wall and ask myself what I was thinking!

But blogging is important to me, and I really miss blogging regularly (sometimes mindlessly, and let me tell you, my verbal diarrhea is sometimes not the most pleasant!).  I’ve been moaning that I haven’t been blogging much.  So, in the interest of developing my writing (an erstwhile goal), I am challenging myself to do BOTH Blogging 101 and Photo 101.  I wanted to join NaBloPoMo but I was afraid I’d miss the prompts!  I have, yet again, challenged myself to do the impossible.  A blog entry AND a photo post every day for a month!  Ha!  But, come to think of it, I already do Fat Mum Slim‘s photo a day challenge and manage to post a photo a day on Instagram most days.  This is just doing that, on a far bigger scale.  I spend so much time online anyway that I think it’s just spending a bit more time on my WordPress tab than being nosy on Facebook and reading posts on Twitter (also a “being nosy” exercise).

So here goes everything!

This month's challenge

Yelly Writes

And…they’re off!

Yelly

The dressings have come off today.  Well, I took them off today.  I took off the dressing and cleaned off the caked blood.

I won’t post a photo of the wound and the stitches because that would be slightly morbid and very macabre.  But the wound site looks good.  It looks like it’s healing well and there seems to be, knock on wood, no signs of infection.

And now I am going to attempt something I have no way of knowing whether or not I can accomplish: ironing and all the work that goes with it (getting the iron out of the cupboard is going to be a particular challenge!).

Yelly Writes

Day 6 of the hand

Yelly

I have stopped taking pain killers for the hand and although there is pain still, at least, the pain isn’t masked by pain killers now.  So in effect, it is now “real” pain.

I’m typing as normally as I can today to sort of acclimatise my hand to the kind of thing I’ll be subjecting it to soon.  I find that there is pain when I use my pinky, ring and index finger (so yes, mostly all my fingers!).  The pain is mostly in the area where the surgery was done.  It is my goal today to get an appointment with the doctor so the hand can be looked at and I can reassure myself that I won’t be doing it any damage by going back to work a week after the surgery.

One of the lovely ladies at work has very kindly (and in a way that only a mum can) told me to stay put for the entire time that I’ve been signed off because I mustn’t do my hand any undue damage.  I do realise though that I need to be patient with myself and that I need to give myself time to heal properly.

That being said, though, I am determined to go back to work this week.  Being left alone with just daytime TV and my thoughts can, sometimes, not be very good!

Yelly Writes

Cheer-me-upper

Yelly

I love flowers!  Every time I walk past a flower stall, I walk away with a smile.  Flowers are the best cheer me uppers ever.

I got flowers today from my colleagues at work.  I feel very appreciated and the flowers have cheered me up a lot.  I have been wandering around the flat like a lost soul with a thumping headache and a very sore, very painful hand.  Getting the flowers helped and am smiling again 🙂

Flowers from work

Yelly Writes

Recovering

Yelly

hurty hand

So now the healing begins.

I had the carpal tunnel decompression surgery yesterday.  I had the procedure done on my right hand over two years ago and it’s helped the symptoms on that hand.  I am hopeful that the symptoms on my left hand are helped by the surgery as well.

I am desperate to get my hand back up to working properly so I am attempting to use it as normally as I would have.  Everything is sore and movement is slow.  But I suppose that is to be expected!  I do get frustrated because I don’t remember my right hand being this sore when I had it done then!  I think what I keep forgetting is that the procedure was only done yesterday!  Duh!

My mantra today?  One day at a time and slowly but surely!