Exceptions To The Rule

We’ve been making a Woodfire Pizza Oven at home over the last few weeks. In one weekend, after so many weeks of waiting, we basically put it all together and started the first fire and batch of pizzas!

Dad was putting the render on the outside, and showing Luke how to do it so he could help. The rule was “Only push the render up, don’t drag it down the pizza oven”. So that’s what Luke did. Later, towards the end I noticed Dad putting the render on sideways. I didn’t say anything, but I thought to myself, “there are (almost) always exceptions to the rules”. I know that for me, there are the odd exceptions when comic sans IS an okay font to use (I know it’s hard to belive…!), or that in cooking, sometimes odd flavours work, and that in craft, sometimes colour combinations that shouldn’t work, do. We can’t be too stuck in the rut, or 100% sure that the ‘rule’ is right.

Now that pizza oven is up and running we’ve used it quite a few times. It’s lovely to sit outside and enjoy some company, and relax. Perfect on these hotter nights! Here are some snaps of the building process:

Oh, and this also means that I can cross something off my list of things that needs to be finished!

1. Making the Christmas pressents for everyone <- very important!

2. Finish making Christmas quilt <- also quite important!

3. Finish bathroom

4. Finish woodfire pizza oven

5. Clean study

6. Edit photos for Pete and Rhys, and edit Video from Hayden’s 18th.

Those last two stare and me, hating me, but I WILL get them done. Eventually. :-S

The slideshow below goes through some of the stages of making the oven. Not sure if you’ll be able to view it in your reader, so if you can’t just click through and view in your browser!

Tags: creation, dad, exceptions, list, oven, pizza, rules, todo

Pizza Scrolls

For this recipe you’ll need to make up the pizza dough first, and then add the other ingredients.

Pizza Dough

Put 1 sachet of yeart (approx 2-3 tsp) of dried yeast into a mixing bowl with 1 tsp sugar and enough luke warm water (really, really important that it’s not too hot!! Better to be too cool, then too hot- you’ll kill the yeast!) to cover the bottom of the bowl.

Let it sit until the yeast is all frothy.

Add 1 1/2 cups of flour and 3/4 cup of luke warm water. Mix in your mixer using dough hooks.

Let this mix sit until it’s doubled in size. It’ll probably be pretty wet.

Add 1/2  cup of flour and mix again until flour is mixed. Let it sit again until it’s doubled again.

(I find that this mix, when risen properly can make about 4 pizzas, or 2 of these scroll logs)

Scrolls

Put 1 grated zuchini, 2-3 diced shallots (depending on their size), handful of fresh basil- finely chopped, and 4-5 cloves of garlic- diced or pressed, into a bowl and mix around.

Grate 3/4 cup of cheese (cheddar).

Roll all of the dough out onto a bench. Spread with some tomato paste. Add the zuchini mix, and the cheese.

Roll into a log, and cut into 12 pieces. Put each piece into the hole of a muffin tin. Cook for 20-30 mins in a moderate oven.

Weight Watchers:

Each scroll is about 2 points each, and you could cut down of the points by using cottage cheese instead of cheddar (1 1/2 points each), or using less dough. We find that four scrolls is plenty for lunch!

Tags: lunch, pizza, Recipe, scroll

Lucky Me…

“I have to celebrate you baby,
I have to praise you like I should”

This is how I felt this weekend. Celebrated by my husband, and family. It’s a nice feeling. Friday was a day of getting presents from my kids and watching Toy Story. Fun times. Piper and her mum gave me an awesome Fraggle Rock T-shirt. Very cool, and I have worn it now ever since I got it! Chocolates, some jewlery, elephants and other nick-nacks were the order of the day. I felt SO special, and almost (I said almost) wish that I didn’t have to leave.

Saturday was also lots of fun. After a bit of a sleep-in Luke fixed up my iTunes, and then we went to the shops. I got an iPhone! and some new underware. Plus we bought some yummies for lunch.

After playing with my iPhone for ages Rhys came over and we drunk wine and champagne and ate a yummy salad, and some other yummy things like chocolate.

Then we eventually got ready and went down to Brissie for Faith’s birthday party @ The Brew House. Fun night- beer, pizza and some arcade games next door.

Thank-you Luke for a great weekend, and to my family for sharing it with me.

Tags: beer, brisbane, celebrate, chocolate, Family, Friday, iphone, kids, last, Luke, pizza, rhys, saturday, special, t-shirt, toy story, Uni, wine