Home making Saturday

I woke up to the alarm but turned over and only got up around twenty to seven, when mippies insisted it is time! They want to go out! So, I opened the front door, they dashed outside and I went to make my coffee.

Mippies returned insisting outside is not good without me there as well. Sigh, it's too cold to sit outside in the mornings, now! But I obliged. Then came back inside to make myself a slice of bread - yum, yum, yum! I gave the rest of the loaf to my landlady - I thought it would be nice to have fresh bread for breakfast! And I'm eager to play some more, he he.

I'm not sure how it happened, but I already washed the dishes! Well, I need a clean kitchen to work in - and I'd like to finally get around to arranging the cupboard properly. At the moment, everything is just about where I could find space, with baking ingredients and spices all mixed up everywhere.

When I move into a place, I usually arrange things the same way I had in the last home - but here, I have such a different life style, that doesn't really work. I need more space for tins and less space for ... oh, I don't know, I've always been such a hoarder, I'll simply need to reduce the hoard. I would buy things for a specific use, and then just not use it - and since it has a long shelf-live ... it lives on my shelves. Sigh.

With me getting more tinned stuff now, I'll need space for them - and accessible space. And with the bread making now, I'll want those ingredients easily accessible as well. Some of the cake baking ingredients can live at the back, since I so rarely bake cake.

First, I started by loading the washing machine, though - but that soap crust in the tray finally irked me too much, so I took it out and it's now in the sink, soaking! I'm on a cleaning mission today, ha ha!

I've also just cut off Mewthos' Seresto collar. His neck is still growing and it feels like it's getting tighter and tighter; and since it doesn't seem to ward off ticks anyway, I decided to try the Frontline on him. Personally, I'm not very keen on putting collars on cats, I'm always afraid of some accident. And I still don't know where or how Mewthos lost his first collar. I'll be glad if the Frontline works for him - I'll order more, anyway, since Ziva relies on it. I also need to order more food for my mippies. I'm down to 3x2 sachets of Royal Canin (3 in jelly & 3 in gravy). They're also going through the Iams with some enthusiasm. And yet, they've lost the tummy! My landlord was asking me the other day whether I'm sure Ziva can't possibly be pregnant - she was forcing herself through the mesh, with her tummy giving her trouble! But now, they're back to normal. It's that Whiskas, that's so full of 'filler', it's really a waste giving it to them. It fills their tummies, but doesn't feed them.

They are still eating three, sometimes even four sachets a night, plus a scoop of Iams kibbles - but now, they don't polish their bowls right away. They are clean in the mornings, though. And, with the Iams, I don't need to be stingy - it's nutritious as well, so it feeds and doesn't simply fill them. Sigh, it's just all so much more expensive! But it does balance out, as they eat less of their FIT 32 kibbles.

I've taken out the pork mince, when it's defrosted, I'll make Buletten (which is like Frikadellen, just formed flat, like hamburger patties). I'll prepare a bread rolls dough, which I'll keep in the fridge, so I can simply bake myself bread rolls and fry a patty for dinner. Right now I'm making Pizza dough - well, I've done my part, now it's in the bread maker getting kneaded. And then I'll make a wholemeal bread. Ambitious, I know, but I do feel like it, so it'll be fine. Well, I hope I'll make it all!

Uff! I've re-arranged and cleaned most of the kitchen cupboard - right now, I've just had enough, so I put the rest back in any-ole-how. I'll do that another time. Sheez, but I've got a lot of ... stuff! I was going to say junk, but it isn't exactly junk. I like to have choice in my home, I don't like feeling like something and not having it at home. I've never liked going out 'to just quickly get' anything. So I have some ten types of tea in the house ... even though I don't often drink tea. Ha Ha!

I also have a lot of single-purpose stuff in the house, like muffin-mix, for example. Yet, I also have flour, eggs, baking powder, etc - so I don't really need both! Well, actually, I don't have baking powder - but a sachet of that takes up less space than a bag of muffin mix! Or: I have three types of pasta in the house, but I also have everything I need to make my own pasta, including a pasta machine! Those are just some examples, and not the best ones, perhaps. But I can reduce space by choosing either ingredients or the finished product! I don't need to stock both! Custard is another example - I've got plenty of custard powder to make custard with milk; yet I also keep half-liters of custard. Oh, and I even have caster sugar as well as icing sugar, so really!

Anyway, my pizza is finally in the oven! That's the reason I stopped re-arranging the cupboard - I was getting hungry, and the dough was ready! I put some chopped tomatoes from a tin (funny thing, some of those 'tomatoes' look like onions to me! Yeah, they are onions, but shouldn't be in that tin!) as well as sliced mushrooms, also tinned, and then I cut some salami into cubes. I don't have cheddar in the house, so I used Emmentaler - and I didn't grate it, I just covered the pizza with slices.

Now I need to wash dishes again, and then I'm ready for the next dough experiment. I'm thinking of making some dough for bread rolls and keeping that in the fridge during the week, so I can quickly bake them any evening.

Second load of dishes are done, which took almost as long as a normal weekend load, since I took some stuff out of the cupboard, which I had previously stashed there, unwashed. Like my teapot. Oh and I've watered the garden and the second load of laundry is hanging to dry. Then I made the dough for the bread rolls, which my machine is busy with now.

The Pizza was ... a little more bread than pizza. Two reasons: 1) I left it in the machine after it was done and it just continued rising, but 2) I misread the ingredients. The print is so small and I didn't look properly, so, instead of 2 3/4 cups of flour I added only 2 1/4 cups. So, basically, I have a flat bread with toppings, ha ha! Still yummy, though! Reminds me of the first Pizza I ever made, where I had to call in help to eat it!

Unfortunately, I forgot about my goodies, so I didn't add any of them. Next time! I've also decided that I'll treat myself to a mozarella, so that I'll have the perfect cheese for my next pizza!

I've done almost everything I had ambitiously hoped to get done. I still need to make the Buletten, but that's done relatively quickly. And I still need to make bread for tomorrow's breakfast and so I'll have some bread to take to work. I've decided to give my own bread a try this week. See how that goes. Initially I meant to defrost my last loaf, and bake a new one around Wednesday evening. But I want to try a wholemeal loaf, and I don't want to wait half a week before I taste it! Ha Ha!

Oh and I just learned that you should refrigerate bread dough before it rises, not after. Well, too bad, I've refrigerated the dough I just made. Let's see what happens!

I've also packed the leftover pizza away. Well, I say leftover, but basically it's the whole pizza minus one slice! Tomorrow it'll be time to try wholemeal! Yay! Fun!

I've placed the order for the cat food, so that's done as well. Apparently my mippies don't like tuna every Saturday ... maybe just every second Saturday. I've also ordered some alternate wet food, just to try something different. Since it's in gravy, they should like it.

And now, I have three puddy-tats purring on my bed ...