Rather Large Garlic Pizza Bread

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This was another one of those ‘ooo – I wonder if I can make’ moments – I may go for a slightly smaller version next time and save this mammoth sized one for when I have a few more than two people to feed!

Rather Large Garlic Pizza BreadWhat you’ll need:

Breadmaker
300g strong white bread flour
1/2tspn fast action dried yeast
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tspn salt
170mls water
Several cloves of garlic
Rather a lot of butter
Jar of pizza sauce
Grated mozzarella

What to do:

1) Put the yeast, flour, olive oil, salt and water (yeast first) into the breadmaker and choose the pizza dough setting

2) While the breadmaker is doing it’s thing, crush the garlic gloves into a dish of slightly softened butter and squish together (or use a fork, it’s really up to you!) until you have garlic butter

3) Transfer dough onto a floured surface, knead for a bit, and the roll out to make a pizza shape – transfer this to a lightly greased baking tray

4) Spread the garlic butter over the pizza dough, spread pizza sauce over that, and then sprinkle the grated mozzarella over that.

5) Bake in a pre-heated oven for about 15 mins at 200°C (180°C fan), or until the cheese is melted and golden and the dough is just starting to brown at the edges

6) Serve with whatever you feel like

I can see clearly now my specs are on

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Was discussing my appalling eyesight with some friends at work the other day when one of them said I reminded her of a song lyric – my brain immediately went into parody mode and this is the result (with apologies and due credit to Jimmy Nash who, according to Wikipedia, wrote the original lyrics it’s based on):

I can see clearly now my specs are on

I can see clearly now my specs are on,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone is the blurriness of being blind
It’s gonna be alright (right), alright (right) -
I see the way!

I think I can make it now, the headache’s gone
All of the missing things have reappeared
It’s the prescription I’ve been prayin’ for
It’s gonna be alright (right), alright (right) -
I see the way!

Looked all around, was nothin’ but fuzzy lines
Looked straight ahead, nothin’ but fuzzy lines

I can see clearly now my specs are on,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone is the blurriness of being blind
It’s gonna be alright (right), alright (right) -
I see the way!

© Catherine Smith

3500 punches, 1500 kicks and 800 calories…

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This, according to the instructor’s helpful announcement with 186 punches to go and my arms feeling very much as if they wanted to put in for early retirement, is apparently what I got through during last night’s new Body Combat routine. Quite how they managed to squeeze that many torturous movements into only an hour is beyond me – I’m also slightly worried at how many more they’ll try and squeeze into the routine after this in three months time, but for my shoulders’ sake I’ll try not to dwell on that one too much!

To be fair, I coped pretty well with the punchy and kicky bits – what got me was the evilness of tacking the plank followed by something called the Iron Cross (easily the most hellish variation on the situp concept I’ve ever experienced) onto the end of them, although I did experience a very brief moment of joy at the thought that situps would at least mean sitting down for a bit.

I should probably clarify at this juncture that I do quite enjoy Body Combat, albeit not as much as Zumba which has more Cath-compatible music, more dancing and less situp-ing. I just find I often enjoy it a lot more once I’ve done it!

Hello, old friend.

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After my failed attempt at getting back into Zumba last week, I thought I’d give it another try today. Super-fit instructor lady wasn’t there, but another super-fit instructor lady was there to take her place. As a result, in a welcome change from last week, I managed to get my Zumba fix for the first time this month!

I have to say, I like the usual instructor lady; I like her routines and the pace of the class, and I like the mix of songs she uses, not to mention the fact that she prefers to keep the lights on. Having said that, I did enjoy having a different instructor for a change this evening – it made for a refreshing, not to mention fun, change having some new routines to try, some new songs to listen to, and a different Zumba style to try and adapt to. I was also rather pleased to see how quickly I was able to pick up some of the routines compared to the me of about five months ago going to her first session – it’s almost as if doing something often enough makes you better at it…!

 

Ever had one of those months?

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I’ve not been able to go to Zumba or Body Combat all that much so far this month, where “all that much” roughly translates as “once”. It’s not that I’ve gone off these things (thus breaking with my traditional pattern of getting bored a few months into any given endeavour), but it’s pretty hard to contemplate bouncing about like a loon for 45 minutes after a day at work on not very much sleep, let alone actually go and do it. Pretty much the only exercise I’ve gotten in the last couple of weeks has been bopping about in choir practice on Mondays – turns out not even chronic Zombie-ism can stop me from singing if it’s on offer (again, workplaces of the nation, are you getting this??)

Anywho, this evening I found myself in the, of late, rare position of having energy upon finishing work so thought I’d take advantage and head to Zumba. Functioning me? Check. Functioning Zumba class? Not so much check. Grrr.

It be Wergle Flomp time again!

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Last year I submitted this to the 2011 Wergle Flomp poetry contest… as predicted, it didn’t so much fly as plummet as far as making it into the top entries goes, although I like to think it raised at least a smile or an eyebrow at some point on its way to obscurity.

This year, I thought I’d enter this to see if it fared any better…. it beat a field of roughly a dozen entries in a competition held where I work after all; why not an American, internationally acclaimed contest for people who do this sort of thing a lot better than I do and enter in their thousands from all over the world? Stranger things have happened – I now look forward to Mondays, for example… I’d just rather they followed somewhat longer weekends :)

 

Every workplace should have a choir. Fact.

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Choirs seem to be something of a ‘big thing’ at the moment. It wasn’t so long ago that a game of Word Association Football involving the word ‘choir’ would have thrown up ‘church’, ‘male voice’, ‘school’, ‘ladies’, ‘gospel’… and probably not a lot else. Well, maybe ‘Sister Act’. Then Only Men Aloud happened. And Glee. And the lovely Gareth Malone and his Military Wives Choir.  Now they’re everywhere – including where I work!

I love singing – I sing everywhere: in the shower, in the car, in the kitchen, you name it. I was in my school choir, then I was in my university’s gospel choir and then, apart from a brief spell in my local community choir, I was bereft of choir-iness, specifically of the funky,  fun, upbeat kind. Now, thanks to an amazing company called Sing and Inspire and the lovely people who work there and come into our office every Monday lunchtime, I have the afore-mentioned funky, fun, upbeat choir I was after! I was listening to Radio 2 the other day and two songs from our set list came on in a row – now that’s what I’m talking about!

Seriously, any bosses or office managers reading this, if you haven’t got one, get one – they make employees like me very happy indeed :D

Stupidly Simple Burgers

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The other day we fancied burgers so I decided to see if I could make some. From scratch. Without a recipe. And I could!

What you’ll need to make two whopping burgers:

500g decent steak mince (I did say they were whopping)
Some salt and black pepper
Two cloves crushed garlic
Some olive oil
Some mild chilli powder (for a bit of added flavour)

How to make them:

Put all the ingredients into a bowl and mix them together for a bit.

Use your hands to squidge roughly half of the mixture into a rough burger shape and place onto a grill pan. Repeat for the other half. They’ll now look a bit like this:

Burgers on the grill

Grill for 15-20 minutes and serve in your bread product of choice with whatever you like to have with burgers – we went for crusty rolls from the Co-op and chunky chips from McCain  :D

It really is that easy, and it took less time to make them than it would have taken to rummage through the five drawers in our freezer looking for ready made ones, or pop out to the shops to buy fresh ones. I call that a win :)

Body Combat

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Tonight, at least in part because a couple of girls I work with enjoy it, I swapped my usual* Thursday night Zumba-in-the-dark for Body Combat to see what it was like and change things up a bit.

Turns out that Body Combat is a much, much harder workout than Zumba – I was ready for the cool down about 10 minutes in and I can already feel my arms, legs and abs planning their payback assault on me for when I wake up tomorrow. Enjoyed it though so have booked up for next week – assuming I can move again by then.

*If you can refer to ‘went once’ as ‘usual’, which you probably can’t.