Pizza dough bread

The other day, I wrote a post about Jamie Oliver's pizza dough recipe which I have taken a liking to. The great thing about it is that it also makes a really nice bread. So the last time I made pizza dough, I doubled the amount I usually make, and had enough for one pizza crust and one loaf of bread. Which actually turned out to be a rather large loaf of bread as I might have left it to rise for longer than planned due to getting lost in my little world of crafting. Talk about killing two birds with one stone, pizza dough and bread without any extra effort. The bread will proof nicely while you are baking your pizza, and once the pizza is ready the bread is ready to go into the oven. Easy and convenient and gives enough bread to feed two people for a week!

Pizza dough and bread (directly borrowed from Jamie Oliver):
Makes enough for one large oven tray of pizza and one loaf of bread
800 g tipo '00' flour or strong white bread flour
200 g fine semolina flour
1 tsp fine sea salt
2 x 7g instant yeast sachet (about 2x2 tsp)
1 tbsp caster sugar
650 ml lukewarm water
4 tbsp olive oil

The howto:
Measure all dry ingredients in a big bowl. Add the water in small amounts while mixing with a wooden spoon. When dough is well mixed, add the olive oil. Transfer the dough onto the table and knead until smooth. Transfer back into a bowl, cover and let rest in a warm place for about an hour or until doubled in size. 

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. After rising, knead the dough lightly. Separate half of the dough to make your pizza crust and form the other one into a loaf (or make two loaves). Slice the top of the bread a few times, and sprinkle lightly with flour. Let rise for about 40 minutes. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until knocking at the bottom of the bread with your knuckles produces a hollow sound. Let cool completely before slicing (at least in theory, in practice everyone knows it's impossible to resist warm bread straight out of the oven).

The verdict:
This recipe is a really quick and easy bread recipe. If you are making a pizza dough you might as well get twice the benefit from your efforts and make a loaf of bread at the same time and almost no extra effort. And we all know that home baked bread is more healthy than store bought, less salt and no weird additives. And nothing beats eating a few slices warm with the butter melting on the bread. The bread is light and fluffy and perfect for lunch sandwiches.

Card of the day:
This time, I got the inspiration for my card from the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge. The theme this week is emboss it, and I have a number of embossing folders I haven't gotten around to using so I thought this would be a good opportunity. As the theme for the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is "Anything goes", I'm also entering that challenge.

I used a Sizzix embossing folder on Tim Holtz Tea Dye cardstock for the background. After embossing, I sanded the cardstock, inked the edges and distressed using the blades of my scissors. I used Tim Holtz Distress Paint in Antiqued Bronze on the embossing folder to stamp the background behind the sentiment, stamped the sentiment from the Tim Holtz Grunge Cirque stamp set in Tim Holtz Aged Mahogany distress ink and heat embossed using Papermania Copper embossing powder. The star is also from the Tim Holtz Grunge Cirque stamp set, and was stamped in Aged Mahogany Distress ink on scraps left over from the background for the sentiment, so the stars have some veins of the Copper Distress Paint running through them. I attached everything onto Tim Holtz Aged Mahogany cardstock.

Poor woman's Beef Wellington

Life is progressing at a rather steady pace at the moment. I have been easing off on the work front after my resignation, no more 10+ hour days, I aim to get into the office as close to 9am as possible (I have made a bit of a game out of it, trying to estimate what time I should leave to arrive as close to 9am as possible) and leave as soon as the clock strikes 5pm. I think I've been consistently clocking out at 5.01pm or 5.02pm all of last week. I am thoroughly enjoying taking it easy, work is still a horrible pain but I have stopped caring about it now that I know I will be leaving soon. Six more weeks to go, that feels like an eternity, but at the same time I know the time will just flash by and soon it will be the end of February. I am enjoying sleeping late in the mornings, not having to leave the house until 8am is such a luxury. At the same time I'm trying not to get too used to it, as I know I will have to get up ridiculously early to make it to my new job, and I also know there won't be any nice 9 to 5 days. But for now I'm enjoying a relaxed pace of life and will tackle any changes as they come without worrying too much ahead of time as I have made my choice to make this change and worrying about it won't help.

I have been trying to get back to my gym routine after the Holidays and did two classes on Friday night. This resulted in a Saturday spent moaning every time I moved, not to mention being exhausted enough to actually take a two hour midday nap. I am completely against napping, it upsets the sleep rhythm and should be avoided whenever possible. But I was simply so exhausted that I thought I would lie down on the bed and just close my eyes for a second. I woke up two hours later and felt wonderful. Well, to be honest, I felt a bit groggy but also warm and relaxed. I then spent the rest of the day in the kitchen. I try to prepare as much food for the upcoming week as possible over the weekend. Often we don't get home from the gym until 9, 9.30 pm and cooking anything at that time is simply impossible. It has to be something you can just grab from the fridge and heat up in the microwave. The other day I got a craving for the type of pasty my mum used to make for us when we were kids. It sometimes had meat, sometimes salmon filling. As we had some minced meat in the freezer, and we are trying to save on food bills and use up things from the freezer, I went for a mince meat filling this time. The recipe is great, it makes two large pasties and is enough to feed an army, or two hungry people for several nights.

Mince meat pasty like my Mum used to make (makes 2 large pasties serving 6-8 ppl each):
2x320g pre-rolled puff pastry (I prefer the all butter kind)
1 cup rice (uncooked)
4 eggs
2 onions
2 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
750 g minced meat
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
pinch of cayenne pepper
pinch of dried chilli flakes

The howto:
Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Cook the rice according to the instructions. Hard boil the eggs and peel. Finely chop onion and garlic. Cook onion in olive oil in a large pan until translucent, then add garlic. Cook for another minute or two, add minced meat. Cook until the meat is no longer pink. Discard any excess fat and liquids from the cooked meat. In a big bowl, crush the eggs using a fork. Mix in the rice, meat and spices. Unroll the puff pastry onto a parchment paper lined baking tray. Take half of the filling and spread onto half of the pastry, leaving about half an inch free around the edges. Fold the other half of the pastry over the filling, and use a fork around the edges to seal the pastry. Repeat using another batch of puff pastry for the other half of the filling (or freeze the other half of the filling for use later). Brush the pastry with an egg if you like (I was running short of eggs so I didn't). Bake for 30-35 minutes, until golden brown and puffed.

The verdict:
I love anything encased in puff pastry. I also get childhood flashbacks from the combination of minced meat, rice and hard boiled eggs. My mum also used to make a pasty like this with a rice, boiled egg, salmon and dill filling. Which I will try if I ever manage to find reasonably priced salmon in this country, but until then I will stick with the minced meat. This is not the most healthy of dinner options but it is delicious, filling and you can easily cook a huge batch at once and freeze in individual servings for easy lunches or dinners. 

Card of the day:
I have still been playing with the Penny Black Life's Messages stamp set after my successful scrapbook pages the other day and made this card. The colour combo is Stampin' Up Blushing Bride and Pool Party. The background is from the Fan Fair DSP. I used the Gorgeous Grunge stamp set to stamp the background. I then made a banner from Pool Party cardstock and stamped using the Fresh Vintage stamp set, which I also used for the figure in the top right corner. I used a stamp from the Life's Messages stamp set in Blushing Bride onto white cardstock, and added some Gorgeous Grunge for the background. For the finishing touches I punched a few butterflies using a Fiskars punch and added Papermania adhesive gems from the Capsule Red Hot collection.

Great pizza dough

I don't know about you, but I am too old and cynical to make New Year's resolutions. However, going through last autumn, which was rather rough especially on the job front, I realised I was focusing way too much on the things that were wrong in my life. Particularly when I was laying in bed at night I often felt overwhelmed worrying about the next day at work. I would spend the weekends worrying about the coming Monday. I would even wake up in the middle of the night worrying. This was all before I was offered my new job, things are much better now. But I also decided I can't just wait around for things to get better, I have to work on changing my life. I did a bit of reading about self help for anxiety and although I found most of the stuff out there absolute rubbish (to put it mildly) there were some good ideas as well. I guess it's all about finding what works for you.

One idea I decided to implement was to keep a happiness journal. It's pretty simple, every night when I go to bed I write something in the diary, forcing myself to identify at least one thing from the day that made me happy or that I was thankful for. Some days it has been something rather small, but I have found that most days there are several things I can easily identify. This is a nice routine that makes me think of happy things last thing in the night before I go to sleep. If later my thoughts stray to more unhappier things, I try to think of the things I just wrote about. 

Another thing I have read about on several blogs is to choose one word to focus on for the year. Kind of like a mantra for the year. I guess it's about evaluating your life and thinking about what you could change to make life better. I chose the word 'cherish' for 2014. I want to live more in the moment, not worrying too much about what is to come or what has happened, but focus on the moment and cherish the good things. Like the moments in movies where time slows down. I want to find those moments next year and focus on them. Less worrying, more cherishing.

Finally on to the reason we are here for today. I like making home made pizza. There might be a place for the Italian style "really thin and crispy crust with not too much topping" type of pizzas (in my mind the only place for those would be in Italy). At home I love a pizza with loads of topping and a thick dough-y crust. With loads and loads of cheese on top.  And the dough has to be just right, I don't like it if it gets too crusty and hard, it should be nice and soft and almost bread-like. I often used to put my own pizza dough together without a recipe, just estimating ingredients. Some times I would get it right, some time I would get it wrong. Then I found Jamie's pizza dough recipe, and I haven't used another one since I first tried this one. It's easy, it's quick and it turns out perfect every time. It's the perfect consistency to knead, it's not too sticky and not too dry. Jamie certainly knows what he is doing. I think the secret to success is to use the tipo '00' flour (although I have also successfully used this recipe with regular white flour) as well as the addition of semolina which adds a nice texture. The only modification I have made from Jamie's original recipe is to half it, as that makes a perfect size dough for my large oven pan for one gigantic pizza (based on the instructions in the original recipe the half serving is enough for 3-4 medium sized thin pizza bases). Also my method for mixing the dough is a bit different (and in my opinion less messy) from Jamie's, check out the original recipe if you want to follow Jamie's method. Oh and sorry again about the less-than-inspiring photos, but after all, it's a blob of dough.

Jamie's pizza dough (enough for one large pan pizza):
400 g tipo '00' flour or strong white bread flour
100 g fine semolina flour
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1 x 7g instant yeast sachet (about 2 tsp)
1/2 tbsp caster sugar
325 ml lukewarm water
2 tbsp olive oil

The howto:
Measure all dry ingredients in a big bowl. Add the water in small amounts while mixing with a wooden spoon. When dough is well mixed, add the olive oil. Transfer the dough onto the table and knead until smooth. Transfer back into a bowl, cover and let rest in a warm place for about an hour or until doubled in size. 

After rising, knead the dough lightly and roll to desired size. Top with your favourite topping. Today I used spinach, roast veg and mozzarella on my half, and chorizo, mushrooms and Stilton on his half. If you want to have a look at what I made out of this pizza dough, there is a picture on my Facebook page here. Feel free to like if you want to keep up to date with the blog.

The verdict:
This is a quick and easy pizza dough that always turns out perfect for me. You can turn it into thin based pizzas or use it for deep dish pizzas. You can even use it for bread. It's easy to knead and work, and it turns out nice and soft. I know I won't use another pizza dough recipe ever again because for me, this is the perfect pizza dough.

Card of the day:
I haven't attempted scrapbooking very much, but when I found the Penny Black Life's Messages on the lovely Kath's blog I knew it would be a perfect stamp set for scrapbooking. However, I haven't gotten around to playing with it until I decided I should make myself a nice little scrapbook page to remind me of my word for 2014. I used Baked Brown Sugar cardstock for the background and the squares. The paper is from the Stampin' Up Fan Fair DSP. I used the Gorgeous Grunge stamp set for the background. I printed and fussy cut the year and the "Cherish" expressions. I used one of the stamps from the Penny Black Life's Messages in Baked Brown Sugar. To finish, I inked using Baked Brown sugar around the edges of the background and the edges of the squares. I will attach pictures of things I cherish onto the brown squares. The page is now hanging on the wall next to my crafting table, reminding me to focus more on the good things in life this year.

I also made another scrapbook page using a black and white photo to balance the colourful background. I coloured the stamp using Stampin' Up colours Bermuda Bay, Rich Razzleberry, Melon Mambo, Pumpkin Piea and Old Olive. The stamped image was matted onto Rich Razzleberry cardstock. The background paper is from Stampin' Up DSP International Bazaar. The banners are cut from Rich Razzleberry and Melon Mambo cardstock and DSP from the Sycamore Street set. The date was stamped using the Hobbycraft alphabet typewriter clear stamp set using black Hobbycraft ink. I am quite pleased with how the projects turned out. 

Leftover turkey pie

Looking back at 2013, one thing I did learn was that sometimes you should just trust that things will work out. I spent most of October and November applying for jobs. Interestingly, the first job ad that caught my eye was for a project manager at the University of Cambridge for a project I happened to know from my earlier job. I applied for it, but thought it sounded a bit too good to be true, and that I would have no chance actually getting it. The deadline for applications was also far away. So I kept applying for other jobs, quite a lot of them, and many of them jobs I didn't even really want but I kept thinking they must be better than the one I have. And I spent a lot of my holiday entitlement going to job interviews. I kept getting disappointed when I didn't get the jobs. Finally I got a call, an interview for the job I had first applied for. On top of it all, the interview was on a day I couldn't make it because of previous work commitments. So I emailed whether they would be willing to move the interview, which fortunately they were. 

Long story short, I was offered the job the following working day. The morale of the story: if I had just believed I could get the job I wanted, and knew I was great for (it's not often you tick every box on the job application requirements list) I would have saved myself so much stress, disappointment and wasted holiday days (not to mention money spent in ridiculously expensive parking garages). As Mum always says, you have to believe that life will carry you. I don't know what my future job has in store, or what 2014 has in store for me but maybe I will have a bit more faith that life tends to find it's way, one way or another. I'm not saying things will just sort themselves out if you aren't willing to do something about them, but sometimes you just have to have faith.

So after these deep philosophical thoughts brought on by the New Year, on to more mundane issues. I promise this is the last leftover turkey recipe as I used the last leftover turkey for this pie. Again born out of no other inspiration than whatever food I happened to have lying around after Christmas. I do like to play fridge roulette and see what comes out after combining the random ingredients I can find.

Leftover turkey pie (serves 4-5):
1 shortcrust pastry (I used some left over store brought pastry)
2 cups leftover turkey and sausage meat from the turkey
100 ml crumbled blue cheese
1 tomato
200 ml cream
3 tbsp cottage cheese
1 egg
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sweet paprika 
a pinch of cayenne pepper
50 g grated cheddar

The howto:Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Shred the turkey and roughly chop sausage meat. Line a pie tin with the pastry. Fill with meats and top with the blue cheese. Thinly slice tomato and place on the turkey. Whisk cream, cottage cheese and egg lightly with a fork. Add spices. Pour on the pie. Top with grated cheddar. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until the filling is bubbling and pie is golden brown.

The verdict:
The pie turned out really tasty and creamy with a just the right amount of blue cheese to give a subtle flavour but not too overwhelming. The cream and cheese made the slightly dry turkey nicely moist and tasty. Well, adding cream and cheese to anything will make it taste great. This will make a great takeaway lunch for the first painful days back at work. 

The card:
I continued to play with my Wildflower Meadow set, here is a few other cards I made. The first one is using the same colour combination as my previous card, I coloured the stamp with Stampin' Up Old Olive and Melon Mambo and Tim Holtz Distress Worn Lipstick. I then embossed using the Wildflower Meadow embossing folder. The sentiment is from the Chalk Talk stamp set and stamped onto Old Olive cardstock using Old Olive ink. I added a few adhesive gemstones and some organdy ribbon from my stash. I matted the card onto Old Olive cardstock and attached everything on Kraft cardstock.

The second and third card were both stamped onto white Hobbycraft cardstock using Baked Brown Sugar ink and embosse using the embossing folder. For the first of the brown cards I stamped the sentiment from the Chalk Talk set onto Baked Brown Sugar cardstock and fussycut it. I added some brown bakers twine and attached the sentiment using dimensionals. For the second card, I re-stamped the Wildflower Meadow using Strawberry Slush ink and fussycut the flowers and attached using dimensionals. I stamped the sentiment from the Chalk Talk set and attached using dimensionals. I also used some pink ribbon from my stash. Both cards were then matted onto Baked Brown Sugar cardstock and the first one attached to Whisper White and the second onto Sahara Sand card.

Leftover turkey soup

Happy 2014!! So begins the difficult period we have to endure every year when learning to write 2014 instead of 2013. Oh the pain and misery... But seriously, this is going to be a great year! Yes, there might be some residual Christmas induced blubber to get rid of, and yes it's still dark, wet and miserable. But days are getting longer by the minute, and soon enough it will be spring. And with spring comes light, sun (maybe not on this island, but elsewhere) and of course planting the garden. 

We have so many plans for the garden next spring. There will definitely be tomatoes again in the greenhouse. We had such an amazing crop of tomatoes last year, let's see if we can do the same this year when we have to grow everything from scratch. At least that is what we will try to do, plant from seed. If that fails, plan B is to buy plants, but of course we will still have to keep the poor little things alive once planted. We are also doing potatoes, onions and garlic. Sweet peppers, cucumbers and courgettes. Our cucumber and courgette crop was not particularly successful last year, but we have learned from our mistakes. And I want more herbs. I have already used up what little thyme we had. So next year there will be more thyme. And loads of dill. The parsley will have to go. As will the fennel. There will be oodles of basil. Some coriander. I am also thinking maybe some heirloom carrots and beetroot. There is a really pretty white and pink striped beetroot I would love to grow. Heirloom tomatoes would be great, I love the whimsical look of them. Check out these babies. In general, I love the thought of going back to grow the varieties which were bread for flavour rather than looks. How depressing is it that every single tomato is exactly the same colour and each cucumber the same curvature and length. But it will be a good six months before we know whether we will be successful at growing our own veggies. At least we have the fruit trees which hopefully produce some crop whether we turn out to have a green thumb or not. 

The recipe is another one of my Christmas leftover creations. It is a mild flavoured creamy winter warmer soup. Which helped me get rid of a lot of the leftover turkey and leftover root veg as well as some of our own potatoes which should have been tucked away in the dark instead of left in the conservatory in the light. 

We also made our own turkey stock from the leftovers of the giant bird. The Culinary Consultant stripped the meat of the bird and then tossed all the leftover bits and bobs along with the carcass (stripped of the lemons and herbs left inside of the bird for roasting) into our biggest stockpot saucepan. One onion, one chopped up sad and somewhat unappetising parsnip along with garlic, whole black peppers and bay leafs from our own bay tree were added. Everything was left to cook for about 6 hours or so. That gave us enough stock to freeze one batch and make this soup. I have always thought making stock is really hard work, but it's actually really easy, just chuck everything in and leave to cook. Sieve and voilá, you have your own low sodium and no preservatives stock.

Leftover turkey soup:
About 2 l (home made) turkey stock
6 potatoes
6 carrots
1/2 medium swede
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
leftover turkey to taste (my soup contained a lot of meat)
ground black pepper to taste
dried mixed herbs to taste
salt to taste
about 1 1/2 cup leftover cream

The howto:
Peel and chop the veg. If using swede, chop it into finer pieces than the potatoes and carrots as it cooks slower. Add all the veg, onion and garlic in a big sauce pan with the turkey stock and cook for about 40 minutes. Add the turkey, spices and cream and cook for another half hour or so.

The verdict:
This is a really simple little soup, and it can easily be adapted to help you get rid of all your leftover Christmas veg and loads of turkey. Delicious with a nice slice of bread. If you feel like getting rid of some of that Christmas weight, you can leave out the cream, but I like the added richness and decided I'll start a new, healthier life next week. I still have too much leftover Christmas goodies to start right away. Plus, you need some comfort food to get through those first gruesome days back at work.

The card:
Right before Christmas I got the Stampin' Up Wildflower Meadow stamp and embossing folder set. I was so busy preparing all my Christmas cards and then preparing for Christmas and then recovering from Christmas that I didn't get around to play with it until now. Today's card is stamped with the Wildflower Meadow stamp and embossed with the embossing folder from the set. I coloured the stamp with Stampin' Up Old Olive green and the flowers with Tim Holtz Worn Lipstick and the Stampin' Up Melon Mambo. For the sentiment, I used part of a stamp from the Punch Bunch set in Old Olive and then part of a stamp from the Chalk Talk set in Melon Mambo. I added a striped organdy ribbon in Melon Mambo, matted onto Melon Mambo cardstock and attached everything onto Kraft cardstock. Very much a "spring is coming" card!

Christmas leftover casserole

I cannot believe 2013 is quickly drawing to a close. It feels like it was only just New Year 2013. Thinking back of the year, so much has happened. It was a bad year, it was a great year. We found our dream house and are so happy here, getting settled, enjoying the garden and planning all the things we will do with the house when we can afford it. But from a professional view it was a disastrous year. Which brings me to why I haven't been bloggin in the last few months. And also to why it will hopefully change from now on. 

As I have alluded to before, I have had a rather rough autumn as I have really been miserable at work. I was so excited about my new job in the beginning of the summer, but it turned out to be more or less a nightmare. So I spent most of the fall being completely miserable and then I finally decided I have to do something about it. Since then, pretty much all my energy has been directed at finding a new job. Which I eventually did, and I will start my new job at the University of Cambridge in March. Unfortunately I still have two months left of my old job due to my unreasonably long three month notice period, but it's easier to bear that when I know it will come to an end soon. Not that I'm counting, but when I go back to work after New Year, I have 38 working days to get through. Monday February 24th will be my last day at work and then I have nine glorious days of holiday before I start my new job in Cambridge. 

So eventually 2013 turned out to be the year I quit two jobs. Obviously the first resignation was expected as I came to the end of my post-doc fellowship, but the second one was completely unexpected. I have never truly resigned from any of my jobs before. But there is a first for everything. And one thing I have come to realise is that life is too short to be miserable, even if it did mean I am taking a bit of a pay cut now that I'm changing jobs. I'm not convinced my new job is my all time dream job, but until proven otherwise I will believe it can't be worse than the one I've got now. And hopefully I will stay for more than 9 months, which is how long I managed in the current one. 

But hopefully now that all my evenings won't be spent job hunting I can focus more on cooking and blogging again. And hopefully I will be able to start fulfilling some of my plans such as improving my food photos here on the blog. Now I finally have a bit more space for the food photography, I need to set up some nice backgrounds I can use for my photos.

I started my blog in 2012 and managed a respectable 103 blog posts in the first nine months (I started the blog in April 2012). Sadly, in 2013 I only managed 65 blog posts all through the year, with only four measly posts in the last quarter of the year. Although I don't believe in New Year's resolutions, I am making a New Years wish. I wish I will be able to beat my 65 blog posts in 2014, and I hope I will keep discovering amazing and exciting recipes. 

This year I didn't go back home for Christmas, but we hosted Christmas for the first time in our own home. And not only one Christmas, but two Christmases. In Finland the main Christmas dinner is eaten on Christmas Eve. So for Christmas Eve, me the Culinary Consultant and Sis enjoyed a traditional Finnish Christmas Dinner. Then for Christmas Day, we cooked a British Roast Dinner for the Culinary Consultant's family. Cooking two dinners was a bit overwhelming, but on the upside all turned out great. We were also left with a ridiculously huge amount of leftovers. I love leftovers, I love being able to just pile stuff from the fridge onto my plate and eat a mix of everything that was served over Christmas. And I love trying to figure out ways to make something new and delicious from leftovers.

Breakfast casseroles are excellent places to use up leftovers. You can hide anything in a nice mix of eggs and cream. I got rid of my left over sausage meat, leftover ham, some leftover egg yolks, leftover cream and leftover cheese. Actually, the only thing not left over was eggs and the onion. You can replace the sausage meat and ham with any left over meat you happen to have lying around such as beef or turkey.

Christmas leftover breakfast casserole (serves 4):

1 onion

1 tbsp olive oil

250 g sausage meat

3 slices of Christmas ham

5 eggs (I used 4 eggs and 2 leftover egg yolks)

2-3 tbsp leftover cream (can be omitted)

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

75 g grated leftover cheese (I used cheddar)

The howto:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Chop the onion and the ham. Heat the oil in a pan and cook the onion until translucent. Add sausage meat and cook for about 10 minutes. In a bowl, lightly beat eggs and cream, add black pepper. Add ham to the onion and sausage meat mix and transfer to an oven proof bowl. Pour egg mixture on top, and top with grated cheese. Cook in the oven for about 30-40 minutes until egg has cooked and top is golden brown.

The verdict:

I love breakfast casseroles, I make them all year round. They are perfect for getting rid of practically any leftovers, sometimes I use leftover veg, meat, cheese, practically anything I need to get rid of. Just add eggs (and cream if I happen to have any lying around, but I never get cream specifically for the casserole) and top with cheese. If I'm trying to be really healthy, I leave out the cheese. But as it is still Christmas (kind of) , I added both cream and cheese for that extra yummy finish. The sausage meat we had was also really great, we bought it from our local farm (Johnston of Old Hurst, and no I'm not getting compensated for writing about them, I just happen to like the produce very much). The breakfast casserole turned out really delicious and was a perfect brunch/lunch with a slice of bread.

Card of the day:

I had so many Christmas cards I wanted to show you, but they will have to wait until next December. Also, I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who sent us Christmas Cards, it has been great to get your greetings and I have all the cards out in our living room, sending good thoughts your way and hoping you all had a wonderful Christmas. 

And now, as the days have started to get longer again, it's time to start getting excited about the arrival of spring. I admit I'm a bit early as we haven't even made it to New Year yet, but I can't wait for all the planting to start. I can't decide which herbs I want, all I know is the abundance of parsley currently occupying the herb garden will go and be replaced by other herbs such as coriander, dill, basil and thyme.

Today's card is made using the Stampin Up' Mixed Bunch stamps and Blossom Punch. The idea is stolen with very little modification from this Pin. The colours are Daffodil Delight, Marina Mist and Pear Pizzazz. The paper is from the International Bazaar DSP and the sentiment is from the Hobbycraft General Sentiments. The ribbon is from my stash of random ribbons. I love the card as it's so versatile and you can add any sentiment inside the card to follow on from the "Just a note to say...". 

Pickled cucumbers and gingerbread houses

I cannot believe it's over a month and a half since my last blog post. I am going through a difficult phase in my life right now, and although I am working really hard to make it better, every time I get close to getting things resolved, I slip right back to the start. I am trying really hard to be positive and believe things will get better, but recently I have been so exhausted that everything apart from the absolute minimum required, i.e. getting out of bed to go to work, have been put on the back burner.

However, I am trying not to sink further into the swamp I feel I am in right now, and trying to get back into some old routines. I suddenly felt like I wanted to write a blog post again. Although I'm not cooking nearly as much as I used to, I am trying to make just a little bit of something every once in a while. The problem is, I haven't been photographing most of my food as blogging has been very far from my mind. I have been crafting a little bit recently, as currently it is a better outlet for my anxiety and depression than any other of my hobbies. So I think for a while, the blog posts will focus more on cards than on cooking.

A while ago, I made some pickled cucumbers. I had no idea how they would turn out, but I took a few photos of them just in case they turned out good enough to blog about. Surprisingly, they turned out not just good enough, but really good! Next year I will definitely make a bigger batch of pickled cucumbers if we manage to get a good cucumber crops. It was also surprisingly easy, although I was a bit worried about sterilising the jar and things like that. But like with so many other things, once you actually get going, it's not as complicated as you made it out in your mind to be. So if you like pickled cucumbers but think it's too hard to make yourself, don't worry, just go ahead and try!

I googled several recipes and made a bit of an amalgamation of them all. They all seem to be along the same lines, although the Culinary Consultant picked this particular one as he liked the thought of the sweet peppers in there with the cucumbers. 

Pickled cucumbers:
3 lbs cucumber (I used one really big cucumber)
3 cups sugar
2 cups vinegar (I used pickling vinegar)
1/4 cup salt (recipe said canning salt, I used regular sea salt)
2 medium white onions
2 sweet peppers
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
dill

The howto:
Slice the cucumber thinly in any shape or form you prefer. My cucumber was getting a little out of date, so I scooped out all the seeds, and then sliced it thinly. I also sliced the onion very thin. Most recipes then instruct you to put the cucumbers and onions in a colander, mix with some salt, weigh down with a plate and leave over night to drain. I was too impatient so I only drained the cucumbers for a few hours. After that, rinse and drain well.

To prepare the jar (I used a Kilner 1l canning jar), wash it well in hot, soapy water. Line a baking sheet with newspaper, and after letting the most of the water drain off the jar, place on the sheet. Preheat oven to 140 degrees C, and place jar into the oven for at least 10 minutes, or until all the water has evaporated. Keep it in the oven so that it is hot until you use it (you should never put the hot pickle mixture into a cold jar). If your jar has a rubber sealing ring, it should be placed into cooking water for a few minutes.

To prepare the pickles, mix the sugar, vinegar and salt in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add cucumber, onions and peppers, bring to a boil and let cook for one minute. Add the mustard seeds and dill. Scoop into the can and seal. Let pickle for at least a week or two. I made my pickles a month ago, and they are still fine, so seems like they keep for at least a month, probably much longer. I make sure I only use a clean fork when I scoop my cucumbers from the jar to keep it as sterile as possible, I think this should definitely help keep the cucumbers good for longer.

The verdict:
I was very sceptical about how this whole thing would turn out, especially since the giant cucumber I was using was looking a bit... weird. But the end product is absolutely amazing, and tastes exactly like pickled cucumbers are supposed to taste. We have been using them a lot on sandwiches and burgers. I never thought we would get through the whole big jar, but we have already eaten half of it in a month! Next year I think I will make two different batches, one with the peppers and one without and see whether that makes any difference to the flavour. 

Card of the day:
I recently bought a papercrafting magazine and it came with some free giveaways, such as Christmas themed papers and chipboard cutouts of gingerbread houses. I couldn't resist to play with them a bit and these are the cards I made. Almost all of the materials, apart from the kraft card, some brown cardstock and some ribbon I had in my stash came with the magazine. I also used some Tim Holtz vintage photo distress ink to ink around the edges of the papers to give them a bit of a vintage look.