So much Pizza dough! (and the recipe)

What could be better than sitting in your garden on a balmy Saturday evening with a big relaxed group of your friends and a cold drink in your hand?  All of that with pizza from the pizza oven of course :)

Having now mastered the skill of churning out yummy pizzas from our oven, we decided to invite friends around to share.  With a mixed bunch of friends around - workmates, belly dance students and local friends - we all got down to the business of making, cooking and eating pizzas, all while downing a few cold ones and enjoying the wonderful company.  The kids were up in the trees and the cubby house, chatting the the chooks and dogs and on the trampoline.  The occasional adult joined in the fun (back flips on the trampoline from one very energetic grown up!) and were delighted with the excellent behaviour of all the children. 

Before our guests arrived, our kids handed out important jobs to each of us.  I was on food preparation, Stu was on fire and cooking duties and they were the entertainment crew!  We all excelled at our jobs, if I do say so myself!  I prepared about three times as much dough as we needed, a stack of snacks and my share of pizza toppings, then, together with our guests who all brought along a contribution of pizza toppings, prepared amazing looking and tasting pizzas.  We handed these to Stu who, bright red and covered in sweat from the heat of his amazingly well prepared pizza oven, cooked them in a few minutes.  The first ones in the oven cooked so quickly that they burnt on one side before he could turn them!  But they all tasted good (and the chooks and dogs appreciated the odd crust that was a bit too charred).  The kids did a great job of entertaining the crowd - sharing and playing with all of the kids and occasionally chatting to the grown ups and giving shoulder massages later in the evening.

Of course, no one had time to take any photos of all of this fun, so I can't share any, but hopefully you get an idea of what a great night it was.

Sunday, we declared a day of rest and recuperation after a busy day and night preparing for and enjoying the party.  But my garden had other ideas.  With the fruit and veg ripening at a cracking rate now, I am having to pick, cook and preserve each day.  I peeled, chopped, minced, dried and bottled for most of the day.  It was hard, hot work, but Stu turned the split system air conditioner back on at the switch for the first time since October.  Air conditioning felt like such an indulgence, but with our solar panels producing more than three times the amount of power we usually use, and with us not yet being paid for any fed into the grid, we figured we deserved the indulgence.

Then, faced with huge quantities of leftover dough and pizza toppings (perhaps I did my job too well), we decided to get the oven going again.  This time, we made a huge quantity of mini pizzas that cooked beautifully!  They are perfect lunchbox size too, so after enjoying a couple for tea, I cooled the rest and put them in the freezer for easy lunches for all of us for the next week (and remembered to take a photo!).  Then, oven still hot, I cooked our first successful loaf of bread in the pizza oven (my secret being - cook it in the cast iron casserole pot to give even, moist heat), closely followed by my second successful loaf!  A dozen muffins and a huge nectarine crumble followed the bread. 

Mini pizzas!

With the store cupboard gaining another 14 jars of preserved food, the freezer full, lunches and desserts sorted for the week, I called it a day and took an early night ready for another day of heat and preserving.

I had a lot of requests for my pizza dough recipe on the weekend, so thought I would share it here.  It's from one of my favourite cook books - both for the recipes and the gorgeous presentation - The Thrifty Kitchen.

Pizza dough (serves 2)

(for our family, I make double which makes enough small pizzas for tea and leftovers)

2 1/4 cups plain flour
7g dry yeast (that's one sachet)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
3/4 cup warm water

Mix all of the ingredients together until a dough forms. 
Knead for about 5 minutes. 
Cover and put in a warm place for an hour. 
( If I'm doing pizza for tea, I make this at lunchtime and put it in a big airtight container in the fridge for the afternoon.  It still rises beautifully.)
Take a handful or two of dough, knead slightly in your hands and then roll out to use for pizza.
(We roll ours out on wooden boards with a good handful of semolina below the dough.  The semolina stops the dough from sticking, allowing it to be transferred to the oven floor or a pizza stone)
Add a small number of toppings and cook on a pizza stone which has been heated in a very hot oven or BBQ for about 10 minutes.
(or on the floor of your stinking hot pizza oven for a few minutes!)
Enjoy!

We built a pizza oven!

One of the things we've been very busy with at our house has been the pizza oven project.  Well it is finished!  Hooray! 

Pouncy thinks he makes a lovely addition to the oven.

It was a great project.  We learnt a lot of new skills and ended up with something that we love to look at and is functional too.  But we're certainly no experts, so I'm not giving a tutorial or anything like that.  But here is our pizza oven story.  Feel free to ask any questions.

Step one was to build the plinth or base for the oven.  We had an existing concrete slab, so we levelled that and built on top.  We used besser blocks for our base.  Can I just say - besser blocks are damn heavy!  And having never laid any bricks before, this was a steep learning curve for us.  But despite our lack of experience and the damn rain, it got done and we were even able to make a fancy arch at the front using recycled bricks and pieces of bluestone that were found on our block (they were from the original school building that used to be here).  It was so exciting when we pulled out the form work and the arch stayed in place.  A thing of true beauty that we just kept gazing at.  Oh, and we tested the safety of it by letting Hurley walk under it ;)

We then had to make a top for the plinth.  We used a piece of cement sheet, held up up with more besser blocks underneath.  We laid a surround of recycled bricks, held them together with some wood and trailer ties (true professionals I tell you!) and then poured a 5cm thick re-inforced concrete slab on top.  Onto this, we smashed a pile of bottles and lay the broken glass and then filled up with sand.  This is supposed to help with insulation.  Onto the sand we added a layer of clay pavers.  Then we tested the safety of this by standing our children on the top hehehe.

 

The next step was so exciting as we were actually building the oven, several weeks after starting!  We made a guide for building the dome, then I built another arch for the door.  The rain kept coming and the tarp was well used.  Finally, Stu built a great big sandcastle, I mean sand dome mold, and the kids played in the sand pile. 

 And then we built the oven.  We used about 60 recycled bricks that had been broken in half.  Just an aside here, the work involved in removing mortar from reclaimed bricks and then breaking them in half is back breaking and really rather unpleasant.  The bricks built up quite quickly, with this step and the next being completed in a day.  We put in our stainless steel flue at this point too, nestling the bricks tightly around it to hold it in place.

To finish off the oven, we used a layer of insulation batts and covered them with a mud mix that we'd put rather a lot of oxide into.  It looked rather too much like chocolate cake mix and I spent the whole time we were doing this bit singing the Crowded House song about chocolate cake (very annoying!).  We ended up using two barrow loads of this mud/concrete mix to get a good coverage.

 Finally, we were done!  We left it for a few days for the mortar to dry and then the only thing left was to pull out the sand.  The kids had a great time doing this and it was lovely to reveal the inside of the oven.  We christened it with a small fire and a curry cooked in it.  It was delicious!

And then, finally, we cooked pizzas in it for the boys birthday party.  Stu is master pizza oven man, and did a great job.  But we discovered we needed to burn a bigger, hotter fire, for longer before we try these again.  Probably also wasn't a great idea to try cooking pizzas for the first time with 22 hungry mouths to feed..... oops!  But it was fun anyway and we plied them with home brewed beer and ginger beer while they waited.

All up, it was a fabulously fun project and for about $500 and many, many hours of hard work, we have something pretty special in our garden.

PS. sorry the pics end up a bit tiny - there were just too many to make them big! :)

Slow living month - September

I know I'm 5 days late with this journal - its been hard to find the time and motivation to get here to blog this week.  We're on school holidays and the boys and I have been having a ball, and the weather has been great, so I've been in the garden a lot.  But I do love these journal type of entries, so here it is, Slow Living Month September.  Do pop over to Slow Living Essentials and see what others have been up to.... that's what I plan to do as soon as I'm done typing this :)

~Nourish~

We celebrated early spring one night by taking our dinner outside.  We cooked our tortillas on the BBQ plate and ate by candlelight.  We realised that early spring is really the only time you can eat outside by candlelight with kids - in summer it is too late by the time it is dark and in winter it is too cold.  It was a lovely, impromptu, weeknight dinner.  I love making our own tortillas, it is one of the few things that Stu and I cook cooperatively and I love it.  We are also now getting plenty of eggs, so there has been a resurgence of egg based meals and pancakes on weekends.

~Grow~

September in the garden has been all about preparing for summer crops.  I continued to plant and nurture seedlings in the cold frame and started planting out.  Unfortunately, snails and slugs are a huge problem here, so I've been fighting them at every step along the way.  I've continued to harvest greens from the garden and the snow peas are finally producing a few crisp pods that never seem to make it to the dinner table.  My son has decided that they are a snacking vegetable, not a dinner vegetable - I tend to agree.  I've loved joining in on the garden journal with Squiggly Rainbow too (and will be back on that when the holidays are over!).

~Prepare~

The coriander that has filled our curries with its colour and flavour through winter has sensed the spring and is bolting to seed, so I have picked huge amounts of it to make frozen coriander ice blocks using this recipe.  They're lovely and will hopefully keep the deliciousness going for us a bit longer.
We also continued to bottle beer and our first batch of alcoholic ginger beer.  The alcohol level is relatively low, but the taste is gooooooood!

 

~Reduce~

Lots of lovely op shop finds this month - clothes and books for the kids, crafty things, clothes and a couple of homewares for me and something special for Stu.  An espresso machine! It's not a super fancy one, but it works really well and Stu is enjoying his morning coffee from it.  He is not enjoying so much the regular requests for 'cinos (strawberry, vanilla, caramel and chai) from the rest of us ;) 
I've also continued to reuse and repurpose a lot of 'junk' through the garden for various jobs.

~Green~

Our challenge for last month was to do 'random acts of greening'.  We built (from recycled materials) a new compost bin; switched to bamboo compostable toothbrushes and discovered new ways to be just a little bit greener.  The kids also took it upon themselves to pick up litter when they go for their walks to check the mail or exercise the dogs - proud of my little greenies.  Our bamboo toothbrushes needed a bit of decoration.  They are all exactly the same, so we decorated the handles of them with nailpolish so we know whose is whose.

~Create~

I'm still working on my jumper that I had hoped to have finished by spring, but keep getting interrupted in its creation to make costumes for dancing, birthday presents etc.  And I have had to write a plan for the next few months of Christmas present making as the sheer quantity on the to do list was overwhelming me.  

Here are a couple of little birthday presents I made this month and was able to gift to the little girls they were for yesterday. They loved them!

A Tangled Happy Wand for a 5 year old friend

A little "spare pocket" handbag with crocheted decals.

We also started on the pizza oven, and are discovering creative masonry :) We built the arch to the base - so proud!  (photos soon)


~Discover~

The library loads have been huge this month and I was also given some vintage pattern books which are gorgeous.  On the reading pile are: Living the Good Life, A Katie Fforde novel, numerous books on building woodfired ovens, a couple of copies of G magazine and a book called A slice of Organic. 

~Enhance~

We had our Spring Hafla at Belly Dance.  I love gathering with the community that we've built with our little belly dance group.  We always have a great atmosphere and fabulous fun.  I was so proud of my own kids and all of the other Belly Kids and adult students who graced the stage with the crazy collection of dances I've been teaching them this year.  It is always such a pleasure to watch a student take to the stage for the first time and to watch the buzz they get from such an achievement.  I had numerous people congratulate me on the diversity and family friendliness of the group, I work hard to make sure that all women and kids, regardless of their abilities or body shape, size age etc are not only welcome, but truly included.  I'm really glad this shows.  I also love that I get to share this with my hubby and kids - special!

Some crazy Shaabi style fun with my intermediate students.  This style is representative of modern 'nightclub' style dancing, hence the casual jeans costume.  All just for fun really :)

~Enjoy~

I've enjoyed the first rays of Spring sunshine.  The first week of holidays with my kids.  Hanging out on screen free Saturday nights with Stu.  Having my stepmum visiting and taking her to meet Clover (and in doing so getting to spend time with my awesome bro and sis-in-law again).  A photoshoot with my little spunky guys before their school disco.  A family day at my mum's place where I felt closer to her and my little brother and sister than I have in a long time.  Dinner and dancing fun with my dancing sisters, including some time where we banned belly dance talk and just connected as friends.  And much more. A good month.

Tuesday garden journal

Linking up again this morning for the Tuesday garden journal with squiggly rainbow.....

This week has been typically spring like - perfect sunshiney warmth one day, wintery wind, rain and cold the next.  This would be fine if the weather would work with our plans, but it isn't.  We get a beautiful day for a family visit (which we spent much of inside drinking tea and chatting while the baby was sleeping), and then rain and wind when we want to build the pizza oven!  Needless to say, we haven't got as much done outside as we wanted to.

We have started the pizza oven plinth though.  We built two of the levels of besser blocks before the rain set in and it all had to be left covered with a tarp.  We're getting better at it as we go, but I will just say that I am not making a career change to brick laying and I wouldn't hire me to build your next home. :)

In the vegie garden, I've continued to plant out a few seedlings as they have reached a good size.  I have been giving them a dose of seasol and popping a cloche over them and the growth following transplant has been huge, from 2 true leaves to 4 or more in a few days!

Yesterday I pulled out a couple of shrubs along the front fence that were weedy or struggling.  They were also right next to the veg beds in the part of our garden that I one day hope will be all edible.  I am going to plant sunflowers and other beneficial flowers and things along there, I am just holding off as I want to buy the seeds when we visit the Garden of St Erth in a couple of weeks.

In chook news, our last remaining "old girl" (a rescued ISA who was about 6 years old) got sick.  We decided that given her age and the fact that our treatments weren't working to help her, that it was kinder to put her down.  Stu helped me as I found it tougher to put down a sick old girl than a rooster for the pot.  We feel we did the right thing and she went peacefully.  In happier news, we have gone from getting two eggs a day to getting four as the weather is warmer.  We now get a brown, a white, a cream and a mini bantam egg each day.  Love my chooks.

 

That's about the wrap up.  I apologise for barely getting here to post, but as you can see, we're rather busy at the moment, so I post when I can.  I hope you're having a good week too.

 

Tuesday Garden Journal

Rach from Squiggly Rainbow stopped by here on the weekend and invited me to share in the Tuesday Garden Journal linkup she has started.  I'm a big fan of linkups :)  and I have started to browse through her blog and it looks like another good one - stop writing such lovely blogs people!  I'm running out of time to work LOL

So I'm going to try and join in with this Garden Journal on a weekly basis......  so here goes.

We've been very busy in the garden this week.  Its Spring, of course we have!

I have just finished making this arch in my vegie patch which I will use for growing cucumbers over.

I found these cheeky little tomato seedlings sprouting in the veg beds, and have plucked them out and potted them up.  Based on their location and what was growing there last year, these will be a delicious cherry tomato.  A few plants for me, a few for mum.  By the way, can you see the chicken wire loosely covering them?  That has to be all over my garden beds as we have cats and they love nothing better than well tilled soil for digging in.

The seedlings are going really well in the cold frame.  I love seeing the first hints of green each time a new variety pops through and cheer them on while they grow first leaves and then true leaves.  The zucchinis and pumpkins are nearly ready to go out and then will be protected from frosts by cloches in the garden.

Out in the chook area, Specks is all settled in the old dog kennel with 11 eggs from my mum's farm under her.  With a bit of luck we'll have little chicks in a couple of weeks.

Materials are piling up for the building of the pizza oven.  These concrete blocks came home yesterday and Stu will be getting more supplies after work today.  The concrete we laid on the weekend is dry now, so we will hopefully start the building tomorrow evening.

The sun is out and everywhere I walk I find animals enjoying the sunshine - chooks, bees, dogs, insects, snails (they don't get to stay though) and cats.  They all love our springtime garden as much as I do.

Looking forward to seeing what everyone else is up to in their gardens this week.

A busy weekend and a stingy experiment!

We have just had a whirlwind of a weekend!

From belly dance haflas and family get togethers to building in the garden.  Today we're all tired, but looking forward to another week of busy-ness.

On Saturday, my teenage brother played in his football grand final.  The boys and I didn't go as we would have had to leave too early in the morning following a late night, but Stu went to support him on our behalf.  Sadly, the team didn't win, but it sounds like everyone had a good morning.

In the afternoon, we all met up at my mum's farm.  They have 50 acres which is mostly taken up with rather a lot of horses (my mum and sister are very into showing, breeding and all things horsey).  But 50 acres is a lot of space for a hobby type of farm, and they also have plenty of other farm animals.  It was a great visit - lots of catching up with everyone as my other brother and sister in law had also come over for the afternoon.   Mum made one of her delicious (if eclectic) feasts and we even managed to chat to my Grandad in the UK via skype.  It was one of those family events that felt comfortable and warm.

I managed to come home with a good range of "souvenirs" too - some poly pipe to support my cucumber arch, some fertile eggs to put under my clucky hen, some straw for topping up the nesting boxes, a dozen duck eggs, a pile of books for me and the bookworm kids and a bag of stinging nettles.  Mum thought I was crazy to turn down her offer of silverbeet and take some of her "weeds" instead, but I've been reading so many things about nettles and watching TV shows featuring them - I just had to give them a go!

A somewhat blurry (sorry!) photo of my nettles.

I didn't get a chance to cook with the nettles yesterday as we were out in the garden getting the pizza oven project started.  This involved fixing the wheelbarrow and then mixing up some concrete and screeding off the top of the old garage slab that we'll be building it on.  We have no concrete experience (other than the odd rapid set in the post hole use), and it took a lot of research to even get to this point, and I'm not sure we've done a great job - but it is done!  And tomorrow evening we will hopefully lay the first course or two of concrete besser blocks that will form the plinth for the oven.  We've found this project interesting so far as there are just sooooo many ways people have built woodfired ovens that we have had to sift through all the books and blog posts and come up with a unique plan that is a combination of all the methods we've read about.  This is going to be a steep learning curve, but the aim is to have it ready for a party we're having in November - fingers crossed and I will keep you posted with updates as we build. 

We were also brewing yesterday - bottling the first batch of alcoholic ginger beer (which smells and tastes divine! Can't wait for it to be finished!), and loading up the fermenter with another batch of beer.

16 bottles of ginger beer..... mmmmmmm.....

Back to the nettles though.  I braved them today and used them to cook tea.  They were actually very easy to use and quite tasty.  I simply put on gloves and pulled the leaves off the stems.  I threw the stems out and blanched the leaves.  The sting is all gone when they are cooked.  The cooking water I tried some of as a tea - it has a real earthy flavour with a hint of fishyness.  I can't say I loved it, but it was drinkable and apparently extremely healthy.  The nettles, I mixed with some finely chopped mushrooms, sour cream and grated cheese and used as a ravioli stuffing for pasta made with mum's duck eggs.  The verdict?  Yum!  They were really good!  And the greeness of the nettles is better than anything else I've ever seen.  We'll be revisiting this weed again for sure.

Nettle and mushroom ravioli ready for folding

How was your weekend? 
Have you ever eaten nettles?  How?