Recipe: Pizza Dough

What to do when you need to make time till your boyfriend’s plane lands? Cooking! So I made pizza dough, a nice tested and retested recipe. It’s very basic, but it turns out great!

Pizza Dough

Ingredients:

  • 1 tablespoon active dry yeast (or one 5.5 grams package)
  • 3 1/2 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 1/2 cups warm water

Instructions:

  1. Pour 1/2 cup warm water in a cup or small bowl. Stir in yeast, and let stand until yeast dissolves and turns creamy, 5 minutes.
  2. In a large bowl, combine flour and salt. Make a well, and fill it with yeast mixture, olive oil and a cup of warm water. Stir with a fork, incorporating liquid little by little, until a ball of dough forms. Turn dough onto floured work surface, and knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. If dough seems dry and hard, add a few drops of water; if wet and sticky, add a little flour.
  3. Shape dough into a smooth ball, dust it with flour, place in a large bowl, and cover with plastic wrap. Let rest in a warm, dark place until doubled in bulk, about 90 minutes. Divide into 4 balls before using. Can freeze up to 3 months.

Yield: 4 10-inch pizza crusts

Notes:

  • I like this pizza dough best once it’s been frozen and defrozen.
  • For freezing, I rather not let the dough rise. Once you’ve finished kneading, divide dough in four, grease each portion with a bit more of olive oil, and wrap in plastic, then freeze.
  • For thawing, put the dough at ambient temperature for a while, until you can unwrap it carefully, then place it in a deep dish slightly oiled and cover the dough with the same plastic it was frozen in. Put the dish over a bowl full of very hot water and let rest undisturbed, until dough has risen and at least doubled.
  • Roll out the dough on a slightly floured surface, and cook over parafined paper. It’s easier rolling it out directly on the paper, still using flour.

Use your favourite ingredients for making the pizza: tomato sauce, veggies, different cheeses, meats… My favourites include mozzarella, olives, onion and a bit of tuna! Bake at about 180ºC. You can also make calzone: just put the ingredients mixed together on the rolled out dough covered with tomato sauce, fold in half, and close carefully. Brush the surface with some oil, and into the oven! Enjoy!

Sade

We’ve Got A Hat!

So, I knit the hat in about three evenings, as follows: the first evening I knit the seed stitch rim, the second eve, the stockinette part before the decreases, and today, the third evening, I knit all the decreases and finished the hat. And it fits, and the colour is lovely (pictures don’t make justice to it, no matter if I take them with daylight or flash).

It was a fairly quick knit, and very easy. I enjoyed it so much! And now my ears won’t freeze, since it covers them too :-)

The Hat
The hat!
  • Pattern: Kittyville Hat, from SnB Handbook – earflaps and kittyears removed.
  • Yarn: Pure New Wool, DK weight. One 50 gr. / 67 m. (approx.) skein in Incan Forest.
  • Gauge: 17.5 stitches to 10 cm in stockinette.
  • Needles: 4.5 mm double point needles
  • Finished Measures: Adult size

Notes: I liked the Kittyville hat a lot, but once I had the hat done, I liked it so much without earflaps or kittyears that I’m going to use it this way. I have three more skeins, so I can make a real Kittyville hat if I want! Also, the pattern asks to use a 40cm. circular needle to start the hat and then switch to double point needles, but making it all on dpn’s works as fine.

Happy Girl With Lots Of Presents!

I just got my package from the Christmas exchange. My gifter is Elara! Thank you very much, Elara, all the things are beautiful. First, a general pic of all the presents, still wrapped:

wrapped

Then, all the things unwrapped!

Unwrapped

You can see a little pouch that came with the candy inside, a pair of socks(!), a pretty pendant or brooch in the shape of a butterfly, soap confetty in a glass packaging, an orange shaped candle, a pink elephant! magnet (I love pink elephants, they remind me of a beer called “Delirium Tremens” *grin*), a freebie to try out the parfum Black U, by Adolpho Dominguez, a shower gel with the fragance of 212 by Carolina Herrera, some vaseline, lilac eye-shadow, a mug with the alphabet scribbled all over it, and the most beautiful hand made scarf! (I think it is the Knitty pattern called Wavy, am I right, Elara? Edit: I am wrong, Elara just told me it’s Lia‘s Rainy Day Scarf *blush* Sorry, Lia!!)

For some detail pics, you can see: the pouch, the butterfly, the pink elephant, the socks and soaps.

It was wonderful opening the package, really! Everything was beautiful :-)

Gracias, Elara! (can’t say it enough!)

Sade

Package Sent!

So, I did it in time – damn, I thought I wouldn’t with classes, work, exams, traveling and all that! My package for the exchange has just been sent off to its (lucky?) recipient. I hope it will arrive soon, as it doesn’t really have to make a big trip around the world *hint-hint*. I would have wanted to send it yesterday, but the post office was too full and I had/have a flu that didn’t make it nice to wait more than half an hour. Anyway, I hope «enter nick here» enjoys her pressies a lot.

Edit: Since the package has already reached its new owner, Pat, and until she can post pictures of it, I’ll put one I took before sending it (forgot to add the belgian chocolates when I took the pic…) so you get the idea.

Package for Pat

Sade

And Back Again

I am back from Belgium. I spent all last week there, and had lots of fun. For a whole (short) tale on the trip, visit the post I wrote on the blog Jan and I share. For pics, visit our gallery.

Sade

P.S.: No knitting was done during this time, but I managed to get a grasp at ‘tight spinning’ as I’ll call it (spinning yarn between your tight and your palm).

A Week In Belgium

I flew over to Belgium last Saturday the 3rd and on landing there and after picking up my suitcase, Jan and I went to do some shopping at Ikea. We bought a small dining table, two chairs, a low table for in front of the couches, and some nice boxes for our ‘little’ living room. Then we had fun putting all the stuff together and decorating the room. For dinner we had mum2’s chilli sin carne and rice with the family.

On Sunday we woke up late and had brunch at home, and then idled before meeting up with Chris, Joke, their Benjamin, and Joke’s sister at the irish pub in Ghent. We had some drinks and ate something while chatting over different things and hiding Ben’s playing car. After that, we went home and rested a bit, and called our favourite chinese for a take-away dinner, and passed by Jan’s sis’ to pick up chopsticks for eating our meal. We enjoyed duck with veggies, thing noodles with chicken, and fried rice, with some white wine and while watching some Red Dwarf (season VII).

Monday was time for more Ikea shopping (we had to exchange a book-case, wrong colour!) and bought some more boxes and the book cases, and dishes (only for two) and munchies (chocolate, vanilla cookies and marzipan). We put together all the stuff and had pizza dinner (with extra cheese). And more Red Dwarf *giggle*

Tuesday we went to Brugge for seeing the Ice Palace, a show of ice sculptures that was very cold and nice. There was even a bar to have drinks while seating on cold skins, and a barista with a frozen ass (his hands were kept warm thanks to the thermo filled with hot cocoa). We saw the Christmas (food and drink) Market and bought some chocolate from our favourite shop. And ate a real Brussels Waffle too (suikerwafel) warm, big and mjummy! After getting back home, we called the vegetarian restaurant Panda for booking a table, and had to rush down to Ghent again cause they close earlier that we thought. They had a fix menu (at a very affordable price) with orange lentil soup, a dish of seitan with various veggies and rice, and dessert (choco cake for the chocoholic, yogurt with fresh fruit for Jan).

On Wednesday, Chris was supposed to be at ‘our’ place around 10 for driving to Maasmechelen Village and meeting Dave there. He only got here one hour later though (bad Chris!). Once at Maasmechelen, we took a quick walk around the shops (nothing interesting *pout*) and drove off to Maastricht to eat there, take a walk around the (again food & drinks) Christmas Market and do some shopping at Media Markt. After that we dropped Dave at his place, and drove back home – don’t ask me how was the drive, cause I fell asleep pretty soon after leaving David and only woke up when we got to Brussels, and then fell asleep again! We showed Chris our living room before he left and prepared some veggie lasagna for dinner.

Thursday shopping after brunch! We went to a family run clothes shop (SKM) that was hideously expensive, and after 15 minutes or so we drove off scared to death. We stopped by Ghent and bought a pair of jeans at H&M and a laptop backpack at Fnacs. SKM was so depressing I really needed retail therapy! We went to have dinner at K.Roes.L, a nice restaurant that serves giant pancakes and oversized salads at a nice price, and then we headed off to the cinema to watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Since we got there too early, we played some free videogames (Soulkalibur III I think it was, on the PS II). I kick ass! (literally) The movie was great, go see it if you haven’t yet :-)

On Friday we went to Brussels to see an exhibition about Asterix. And then drove to Grote Markt to see the huge Christmas Market there. It is spread over several streets and squares in Brussels, with a couple of hundreds of chalets that sell different things, including food and drinks, and with nice carrousels with old looking mechanical parts. I bought some glass figurines (christmas decoration) and before heading home we had pankaces and hot cocoa at a pub. Mum2 had prepared a vegetarian rice for dinner that we had with lots of soy sauce. Afterwards, we prepared some salty microwave popcorn, chilled white wine (and cookies and chocolate) and watched more Red Dwarf season VI before heading to bed.

Saturday the 10th was the come back day. We had quiet breakfast and packed, talked a while with mum2 and relaxed a bit before going to the airport and taking the plane back home. It was a quiet flight, except for my headache – caused by me hitting my nose the previous night. And then I am back home and missing Jan so much…

I’ve fallen

And into what? you’ll ask.. I’ve fallen into online s.e.x. (nice acronym for Stash Enhancement eXpedition, eh?).

I got myself 250 grams of Suffolk worsted to heavy worsted wool, hand-dyed in a nice colourway called Autumn Heather, for a nice warm winter hat (still pattern undecided, maybe I’ll go for the Kittyville Hat from S`n`B handbook) – my head and ears freeze on the way to university, and they’ll freeze more in Belgium, so I’m in need of one that at least I can handwash. You can see the wool in this pic:

autumn heather wool

And also indulged in 200 grams of pure new wool, DK weight, hand-dyed in Incan Forest shade. This one will be for making myself fingerless mittens/gloves (downloadable pdf pattern), with cabled ribbing. My hands tend to freeze when I’m at the computer or I need to write a lot, which is always, so these will be very handy too. And here you see the Incan Forest shade:

Incan Forest DK wool

If you’re interested in these yarns, I bought them on ebay, but the seller has her own website www.thenaturaldyestudio.com where you can know a bit more of their work:

Here at The Natural Dye Studio we hand-dye the historical way, using flowers, roots, leaves and heartwood’s. We believe our products are safer for your skin and safer for the enviroment.

We only use dyes and mordants that will not harm the environment, all our spent dye baths and dye materials are composted and used to fertilise our organic garden.

(…)

We only use 100% natural materials and whenever possible use unbleached fibres and fabrics as this eliminates an uneccesary and toxic procedure in the manufacture of textiles.

Some weeks ago I also got 200 grams of nice fleece, washed and carded, from Ryeland sheeps, in dark gray, that I’ll use for learning to spin(!). I want to learn this other fiber art, it looks very interesting and another thing to spend my little free time on. The fleece is waiting for me in Belgium, where I’ll hand-make a couple of drop spindles (both top and bottom drop spindles), and (try to) learn to spin. Pic of the fleece bought at Forest Fibres:

fleece

It was nice s.e.x. It felt good (but I’ll try not to boost my stash too much, I’m on a student budget).

Sade