if there is a will, there is a way

the beginning of last week was hard, i thought i'd never get rid of that sick & woosy feeling. friday was a lot better, so good in fact that i felt brave enough to try driving. fortunately i have automatic transmission, which in these parts of the world is an oddity rather than the rule. i felt a lot better after being out and about.

however, this monstreous cast makes dressing and choice of clothing a bit challenging. a nurse put this bright warning sign -red bandage over the cast at the hospital. i've since found out that nowadays there are other cool colors of bandages available. might have to change the "wrapping" one of these days







saturday morning i felt courageous enough to try making pancakes... nothing to it, except i'll admit it takes a bit longer and puts a strain on my patience. these were sinfully good with butter and maple syrup







certain someone mentioned earlier in the week that we should make pizza...







...you got it, lahey's no-knead pizza dough. certain someone's input was to mix the ingredients, though i'm sure there is a way to secure the bowl so that mixing could be done with one hand







see, a mandolin can be used with one hand







meat section of the toppings, chicken, pepperoni and prosciutto







the dough makes two pies. we made two different kinds, now officially known as "brooklyn" and "tello's"







brooklyn: mozzarella, fresh tomatoes, mushrooms, red onion, green olives, pepperoni, prosciutto







tello's: mozzarella, fresh tomatoes, mushrooms, red onion, green olives, chicken, pepperoni







this time i used half bread flour, half whole wheat flour, the crust was perfect! this pizza is dangerously easy to make, now that i've got the hang of it







had some of this with pizza...







...but this tasted a lot better!







now, if i could only find a will to get outside and move my ever widening butt... for the last week my excuse was the fact that the roads over at the shack are icy and slippery and that i won't risk falling down and perhaps breaking another limb.

oh, almost forgot to tell, the weekend at the hospital was the worst. they have 3 operating theatres over there and at one point on saturday there were 34 persons waiting to be operated... one guy in my room (yes, there was one man among five women!) who had something broken in his elbow waited for surgery from friday evening until at least sunday afternoon when i left the place. poor man, he was in pain...

pizza, vol II

i was so blown away by lahey's recipe that i needed to make sure saturday's pizza success wasn't just coincidental. i made some more on sunday... there was no flour left so certain someone made himself usefull and went to get some from our village shop. as a rule, i don't have anything against small businesses or village shops, but it amazes how this shops manages to stay in business as it's very expensive and staff is unfriendly.

anyways, my instructions were to get bread flour. certain someone calls form the shop and says they don't have any. he then listed what they had and i told him to get something that is called 3-grain flour (wheat, rye and oat). it was a bit coarser than i would have hoped but i used it anyway.

this time the dough looked more like a lahey dough, quite wet, and it was easy to mix with wooden spoon. before proofing here







after 2 hrs of proofing here. the dough looks quite wet but was actually very easy to handle with oiled hands







tomatoes, mozzarella, pepperoni and ham, pre-baking







all done







the crust was rather grainy, maybe even better than on the previous batch...







the dog has claimed this chair as his and usually sleeps on it. 3 years ago taking a pic of the dog was almost impossible as he would dive under any table or chair the second he spotted a camera. i got this close on saturday...







well, i guess he wasn't that much into posing for me...

lahey's pizza

originally i had decided to bake monika's rosemary garlic and sundried tomato bread this weekend, but then certain someone asked for pizza... sorry monika, will try your bread later.

i have tried quite a many pizza dough recipes, so far anna olson's has been the best. i did, however, buy jim lahey's my bread not too long ago and decided to give his basic pizza dough recipe a try. after reading so many bread "bibles" and all of those stressing the importance of weighing the ingredients...

i did something i've never done in my life, weight the flour. it would have been asking too much to follow the recipe to a tee, so i used bread flour instead of all purpose







mixed the dry first, then added room temp water. will not give the recipe since i couldn't find it anywhere on the internet. it might be, and if you search for it, this is not lahey's no-knead recipe that comes up first







tried my best to get the mixing done with just wooden spoon...







... but had to get my hand dirty...







... before i got this smooth ball...







... that was proofing in there for a couple of hours







meanwhile, and this is lahey's idea as well, i was slicing button mushrooms extra thin with my mandoline. lahey's mushroom pizza calls for, obviously, mushrooms and onions, both very thinly sliced, thyme and olive oil. didn't have fresh thyme so i used dried basil instead







see, very thin







after proofing the dough was surprisingly easy to handle. i had almost forgotten that i have these pizza pans. with the pans and the oven cranked as hot as it would get...







... i got pretty decent pizzas. pepperoni, mozzarella and tomaron on the left, mushrooms, onion and olives on the right...







... pepperoni, mozzarella, olives, tomato and prociutto crudo







i was especially happy about how the crust turned out, crisp and chewy







any bets as to how long my camera will last in the kitchen with me?







ps. i double checked to find lahey's recipe, it's there but not by him. it's on someone's blog and as i'm not sure lahey has published it on the internet...i'm not going to share it here, i feel it's not fair

timber & pizza

there was the storm couple of weeks ago, one huge birch was broken and time hasn't been good to some of huge old ones, several birches were getting old and dangerous. lumber jack came today and cut down 6 birches, four of which were rotten inside... so much nicer to have someone who knows their business cutting down the trees, than them falling on their own in a storm (on the house, my car..)

hey, be cafefull, make sure it won't hit my car!







this was the second biggest, my "tiny" hand in comparison







trunk of the birch covered with moss (and saw dust)







stub of the one storm broke off







even bigger, that's my graceful size 41 wellington to compare with







it took just 45 mins for the guy to cut all six, including prep time, great to watch




going...

going...

gone!









he even managed to save a little struggling oak tree that was shaded by a pine and a spruce

certain some won't be having problems figuring out what do in his spare time... (what? me too??)

had a caving for pizza the other day and today seemed like a good day to make some (did have time before work, evening shift today). adapted pizza dough recipe from anna olson's cook at home. used fresh yeast instead of instant (25gr to 3dl of water) and whole wheat flour (6dl), 2 tbsp of olive oil and some salt. let the dough rise for approx 30mins


after rising, divided the dough roughly to 6 pieces in the oiled bowl. this isn't too pretty to look at but i wanted to show off my martha bowl scraper...







egg cutter is handy when slicing mozzarella







had some home made tomato sauce in the freezer (hope i won't be getting any hate-mail from italy!), fresh basil, mozzarella, cherry tomatoes, spianata and diavolo salami







tomato, mozzarella, fresh basil







spianata, diavolo salami, mozzarella, fresh basil







spianata, mozzarella, tomatoes. certain someone mentioned, quite casually, that this was the best pizza he's ever eaten... thank you very much (but he's never been to italy!) i was happy about how this turned out, however, a pizza stone would have made it even better and is something i will need to get, one of these days...