Hello Dear Reader,
Sorry about the picture quality, I took these with my phone today as I've instagrammed and tweeted as I've gone along. I'm aware that some of you read via those platforms and keep in touch throughout the day.
It's the last day of my week off and I have tried this week to get the house in order. I'll be honest, you have to be very disciplined to live in a tiny 500 square feet house. For non- Uk reader, my house is of average size and lots of people live in much smaller houses than this. I'm gaining the self discipline but still have to work at keeping the place in order.
Here's an example, the cupboard under the sink was just full of cleaning products. If I wanted something, then everything had to come out to find it. It was a pain in the neck! I've read Marie Kondo's advice about only keeping the items that bring you joy. Nothing in this cupboard brings me joy but I have to clean the house. Yes, I know I could use bicarb, lemons and vinegar but I've been there, got the t- shirt and now find it easier and preferable to squirt and wipe with something easy.
My cottage, once had a tiny back yard with an outside loo. It now has a covered yard, where I keep the washing machine and tumble drier and the downstairs loo. I don't use it much so I have shelves with tools, the mop, ironing board and clothes racks for drying. I did some research on Pintrest on small space storage and found a door shoe rack used for storing cleaning products. I bought this in Argos for £4.99 and it does the job really well.
I bought the little rack on the back of the door for £1.99 in B&M and that has the dishwasher tablets, my rubber gloves, disinfectant and scrubby sponges. I can now get to my washing up bowls and my vases have some where to live. I moved them there after giving them a good wash and polish and put them away.
My back porch has bits and bobs every where. Cleaning brushes in stacking boxes, bits for the garden such as my dibber for bulbs. There's also the laundry liquid and conditioner just sitting on the floor next to the washing machine.
In the spirit of tidying up, I bought these wall planters for £1.50 each and hooked them onto the wall. Now, at least things are not on the floor and I can easily sweep the porch and walk from the back door to the kitchen door.
I cooked my first cauliflower crust pizza today. It's been a very long time since I've had a pizza and I really enjoyed it.
For the base, I put a whole cauliflower, floret at a time in the food processor until it resembled rice. I then place that in a plastic jug in the microwave, with a plate on top, and cooked it on full for ten minutes. The recipe said eight but I had a very large cauliflower.
I allowed it to cool slightly, then poured it onto a tea towel and wrapped it up before I squeezed out all the water.
I then mixed that with 100g of finely grated parmagianno, 1 heaped tbs of mixed herbs, salt and pepper and three eggs.
The mixture was arranged onto greased baking paper and baked at 200 for ten minutes until it formed a crust.
I then topped it with a jar of Aldi's stir through pasta sauce (89p).
Price
Cauliflower - 69p
Hard Italian cheese - half a pack - £1.35
3 eggs - 50p
Stir through sauce - 89p
Courgette - 30p
Pepper - 32p
100g of sliced Italian salami - use half a pack of sliced - 65p
Total cost - £4.70 - serves four people - £1.18 each.
To make this cheaper, use finely grated mature cheddar, omit the salami.
Finally, I topped it with courgettes, a yellow pepper, some salami slices and a sprinkle of hard cheese.
I baked it for ten minutes.
We ate it with some salad. It's hugely filling. Here's my findings about the recipe. Be a bit braver with the food processor as I felt the cauliflower could be finer. Mozzarella and tomato sauce is really all you need as it needed a melting stickier topping. (I hate gooey cheese so not for me) Don't be shy with the tomato sauce as it all sinks in.
I've missed pizza since finding out I really can't eat gluten and although this isn't really a pizza with a crust, I did enjoy it.
Over to you, how do you use cauliflower? Anyone made a pizza base with it?
Until tomorrow,
Love Froogs xxx