Quick yeast dough pizza bases from Rachel Allen

I had a go at making the quick yeast dough pizza bases from Rachel Allen’s new book, Rachel’s Food for Living and they certainly are quick, with just five minutes or so proving time and just ten minutes of kneeding. I was a bit worried when making them as the list of ingredients included butter ?!? I was worried that I’d be producing a base more bread like than pizza base like but the results are actually really nice. Even though I skipped the optional 30 minutes in the fridge stage (meant to make the dough more easy to handle), the dough rolled out really thinly but didn’t tear. The aim of tonight was actually to make garlic pizza bread (as I didn’t have any suitable bread to make normal (and far quicker and a bit easier) garlic bread) but actually it wasn’t actually that much more work. I made up the base as instructed and just topped it with a layer of garlic butter. I pricked a few holes in the base with a fork, not sure if this is actually meant to help or anything, but I think I’ve seen people do it elsewhere, so I gave it ago and it certainly didn’t do any harm. The resulting base was thin enough and crisp but not so crisp it’s like crisp bread. Definitely the closest I’ve ever got at home to real pizza when making pizza from scratch at home. There was something ‘not quite right’ about the taste, maybe a bit too yeasty, also possiblybecause I didn’t use semolina, also possibly because I used Pure instead of the butter, that never helps! The instructions give enough for 12 small pizza bases, so the other 11 balls of dough I’ve frozen, I just hope they thaw ok as having those in the freezer, as long as they thaw ok, are going to be great quick meals for the kid (and more garlic bread!).

Film review: The Holiday

Just had a lovely Friday evening curled up on the sofa with this DVD. To be honest I wasn’t expecting much, it was filler really on my DVD rental list but it turned out to be a really lovely, charming, romantic, British, chick flick and there ain’t anything wrong with it being a chick flick, specially when this fella is in it →. Never really had a thing for Jude Law before, although I like plenty of his movies, but in this he’s divine. I sat watching the movie commiserating with the heroines when their current men in their lives treated them badly and sat with a great big cheesy grin on my face when everything went ok for them and sometimes that’s all you want from a movie, a great big warm fuzzy feeling.

On a complete different matter, wouldn’t Jude Law so make an excellent next Doctor Who, whenever DT eventually hangs up his pin stripe suit? Look at that photo, can’t you imagine it? Obviously I know it ain’t going to happen but still, I can dream! Isn’t Jude Law also playing Hamlet next year? So there’s a very very lose Doctor Who link for you!

My day again (must think of more original titles) Flylady day 26

Ugh Flylady is bad for the health, no I don’t mean that really but I was flywashed yesterday into cleaning the bathroom, “Must swish and swipe, must swish and swipe”, you get the drift. I cleaned the bathroom and immediately triggered another bad allergic rhinitis attack. Our bathroom is prone to mould (whether I clean it or not, it’s an old bathroom) and I didn’t think, cleaning one particular corner, I must of disturbed a forming mould patch in it’s early stages, it went right up my nose and yes I’m allergic to mould, I’m not as allergic mould that is undisturbed mind you, but that darn stuff must of seen me coming with my wipe and released one last attack into my nasal cavities with it’s spores. Normally if the mould is visible I get Mr. Lacer to deal with it. So I spent most of yesterday feeling like someone had wrapped a thick scarf round my face three times and I was trying to breath through in between sneezing and coughing violently. By the time it was just before the kids bed time I was sitting on the sofa letting them crawl all over me, incapable of doing anything else. Anyway today, day 26, is just reading more stuff.

Now onto other stuff. I finally received the information pack for Boy Lacer’s new playgroup yesterday, he’s only starting the week after next! There has been quite a saga over playgroups this year, what with Girl Lacer’s playgroup closing suddenly in May, which is the playgroup Boy Lacer would have attended. Girl Lacer’s playgroup was perfect and would have been just right for Boy Lacer with his (trying to think of a better word here but can’t) difficulties. So I spent a large chunk of last summer rushing round the rest of the area’s already oversubscribed playgroups, trying to find him a place. I wasn’t happy with any of them, some were just ‘halls with toys in’, which just didn’t seem supportive or structured enough for Boy Lacer. I did find one good one but it was prohibitively expensive and had a stupid rule, that meant we had to send him more days than we wanted to, which made it impossibly expensive. So I was almost resigning myself to Boy Lacer just not going to playgroup, which would have been a shame as all kids like playgroup (in the end) plus his doctors said it’d be really good for him. Luckily the school Girl Lacer attends nursery at, has a community hall on site and it’s just opening a playgroup next month and Boy Lacer has a place. Not yet opened yet, means I haven’t even seen this one, although I know what the building is like as I’ve been there before although it looks like it’s had some improving building work recently. But I’m fairly confident it’ll be ok, it’s part of the school which has an outstanding reputation and a lot of the staff, even the toys from Girl Lacer’s old playgroup will be there. Still doesn’t mean I’m not nervous though, I wasn’t like this when Girl Lacer started playgroup, who even at 2 1/4 was an independent little thing, Boy Lacer on the other hand is going to hate this. So I filled in the forms, I didn’t even bother filling in the paragraph size box about any medical problems, I’ll be supplying a 3 page word doc. instead.

On to other stuff, Mr. Lacer and his family have arranged the funeral for his father, it’s on 1st October. Mr. Lacer’s mother wants the kids there, so they’ll be there, I’m not happy it about it but if it’s going to provide comfort to her, then they’ll be there. I’m not against children attending funerals per-say, I just think they need to be old enough to realise what’s going on and behave appropriately and I really do not think my two are going to behave appropriately, I can almost guarantee at least one of them will act up, resulting in me having to leave the service with them. Boy Lacer will have only just turned 2 (his birthday is the day before) and Girl Lacer a month short of 4. It’s in the afternoon, slap bang in the middle of Boy Lacer’s nap time (but he’s not the sort of child to nap anywhere but his cot, so no hope of him conveniently falling asleep in an aisle or something) and Girl Lacer has a history of when she’s bored in adult situations (and face it, this is going to be boring for her) yelling at the top of her voice “I’m bored, I want to go home” repeatedly. So like I said, I’ll be leaving the service. I’ve read places (on multiple occasions) rather old fashioned sounding advice that for a happy family a woman should be a wife first and a mother second. I think the logic behind it is probably that if the mother and father are happy, then the kids are happy to, which has some sense. I have to admit at the moment, most of the time, I am a mother first and wife second, our children are small and very demanding, I’m also trying to get some work from home businesses off the ground, so I am aware that poor Mr. Lacer takes a back seat sometimes, something I’ve been acutely aware of at times and it hasn’t been good for our relationship. And of all times at his father’s funeral, I need and want to be a wife first, mother second, not going to happen though is it. Anyway, can’t wait for him to be home, which should be hopefully tomorrow, I’m missing him a lot at the moment.