Learning to walk before I run

triple_choc_chip

Thanks Ed, you deserve commission from TCB.  I’ve opened a couple of Cahoots and have £50 cb pending.

CCW007

I've opened one account and cashback has tracked so thank you.

Another one with the Tesco ISA and surprised at the paperwork involved, seems very regressive after dealing with T212 etc.

themadvix

Thanks Ed, three accounts opened... and if I can persuade Mr MV, I'll do his two too!

debtfreewannabe321

Thanks Ed. I've opened a savers account and also a first direct one £175 cash from them for switching and £55 cashback. 

edinburgher

I am glad to have made myself useful, that's at least £550 of cashback between us (not counting debtfreewannabe321's current account as that wasn't my idea)!

We have had a very productive day. All Christmas decorations taken down and tidied away, house returned to normal, loads of recycling done. I also sorted out the last month of financial paperwork and shifted all my unread books/unwatched films to one section of the bookcase for some new year's entertainment

I made homemade pizza for dinner using the breadmaker for the first time and it was delicious! Pepperoni for DD1, Bavarian ham, anchovies, Halkidiki olives and capers for us. I also used the kitchen time to make a loaf of bread, and macaroni cheese for tomorrow's dinner using up some fancy cheddar that was on special offer over the holidays. I do love a wee wholesome plooter in the kitchen...

Try not to laugh, but I went back to Lidl today. I'd forgotten what good value it was. 3kg of strong white bread flour, some fancy raspberries on offer, unsalted butter, pastrami and two cronuts was £9, only £7.x for the real food. I definitely think that not shopping at Sainsbury's is going to be the key to getting our grocery bill back under control. 

Back to work tomorrow, but not dreading it I get paid on Tuesday, will be interesting to see if I have any overtime monies left in this.

• £3.51 to extension
• 45p to EF

That's all I got, goodnight all.

*Edit: And $5 for a wee AI study before bed, £5.94 withdrawn, £4.97 to personal spends and 97p to tax. 

edinburgher

A very cold start to the day, we're swapping out DD2's rear facing car seat as she is now too tall for it (3 1/2) and I've managed to get the car from -6 to a balmy -3! Mrs E taking the girls to a café to get them out the house. 

I have started working but it's a very slow, quiet start. I picked up a couple of AI studies for $10 and they've dried up now. For the best, I've got something to be getting on with at work

• £8 to Extension
• A princely 59p to EF

One of the nerdly things I am enjoying is the impact that slight overachievement with Extension payments has on subsequent months. For example, today's payment takes 13p off all future payments While I appreciate that this isn't a lot, it's nice to see something creep down the way in a world of costs that only seem to go up.

South_coast

Yes, that is nerdy 🤣

edinburgher

Lunchtime approaches! 

• £8.18 withdrawn from Prolific and moved to personal spends
• £1.81 to tax as apparently I'll need to pay at least 42% come my next tax return. I swear my tax rate grows by the minute I did an interesting wee thought experiment this morning in which I calculated that I could avoid HR tax entirely if I put my AVCs up from 5%-15%. While it would only cost me IRO of another £200 every 4 weeks to do so, I strongly suspect that the pension vs walking around money cost would start to bite.
• £6.34 moved to personal cash savings

Willow1983

Hi Ed, I love reading your diary and it’s great to see the difference in you since you changed jobs 😊 can you do me a favour and give me your pizza dough recipe as I’d like to try home made pizza? Thanks Willow

edinburgher

Willow1983 said:

Hi Ed, I love reading your diary and it’s great to see the difference in you since you changed jobs 😊 can you do me a favour and give me your pizza dough recipe as I’d like to try home made pizza? Thanks Willow

Thank you @Willow1983 - I feel like a new man  

Excuse my spontaneous recipe(s) below, best I can do from memory.

I used my Panasonic breadmaker, so all credit to them for the dough recipe. This makes enough for 2 good sized pizzas, I used standard pizza trays which are probably about 12", I'd describe the eventual base as thin crust.

Dough

• 1 tsp dry yeast (I use Allinson's Easy Bake Yeast in the wee tin)
• 450g strong white bread flour (I have been using Sainsbury's organic but Lidl Belbake made it into the mix and it didn't suffer for it)
• 4 tbsp oil (I used Lidl's cheapest EVOO)
• 2tsp salt
• 240ml water

Shaping the dough

45 minutes in the breadmaker, dough cut in two on a floured surface, given another 5 minutes for the gluten to relax? (you'll quickly see if this step is necessary based on whether the dough immediately returns to shape when you try and stretch it). I roughly followed this video to shape the dough:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBHQjNAQgFU

Sauce

The sauce was a simple recipe shared by my little brother, modified slightly:

• 1 tbsp olive oil (same as before)
• 1 large clove of garlic (crushed)
• 500g passata
• 1/2 tsp granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp table salt
• 1/2 tsp dried basil (recipe suggested fresh, I'm Scottish  )
• 1 tsp ground black pepper

Heat the oil for a few minutes on low-medium hob, gently cook the garlic for a few minutes (avoid browning), bung in everything else and cook at a gentle bubble for 20-25 minutes, you're just looking to reduce it a bit. I did 20 minutes but that was with a good quality passata, more watery stuff might take longer. Let the sauce cool before using. Each pizza needed IRO 2-3 tbsp of this sauce. I did 2x heaped tbsp and a scant tbsp for each pizza.

Topping

Credit once more to my little brother, he recommends using grated mozzarella because it's less watery than the stuff that comes in balls. I used to be afraid of this stuff as I'm convinced producers used cellulose? back in the day to prevent clumping, but it's all potato starch now. Each of these pizzas took 125g of cheese, which allowed for a good amount without being a greasy mess. 

Cooking

I was very keen to avoid the dreaded soggy bottom. As I don't have a fancy pizza oven, cooking stone etc., I just whacked the oven up to the self-cleaning temperature (fan 250). These pizzas took 8 minutes on the nose towards the top of the oven.