Earlier in the year, the missus and I went to Ghent in Belgium. It’s a really cool little town about half an hour on the train from Brussells; the perfect place to visit for a long weekend.

One of the things we really loved about the trip was the discovery of a beer called Vedett. It’s a classic blonde Belgian lager, with a really crisp and clean taste, and comes in these really lovely curvy green bottles.

The way Vedett behaves as a brand is also pretty cool. From the little penguin logo, to the really quality merchandise which includes chairs, blankets and glasses, it’s obvious that it’s run by really creative people. (more…)

As mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve recently got into baking bread. As well as being really satisfying, being able to make your own opens up all sorts of other avenues to filling your belly. Making pizza is just one of them.

This recipe makes one large rectangular pizza with a thin, crispy, tasty base, that is a million miles away from the flabby crud that the likes of Planet Pizza churn out. I would recommend that you make a bigger batch of the dough and freeze half of it to use at a later date. Just double the quantity of the mix (below), and once risen, wrap half in cling film and pop in the freezer.

For the tomato sauce, you can pretty much use the same sort of thing that you’d usually put on pasta. I use a simple sauce made from a tin of tomatoes, garlic, herbs and seasoning. If I can be bothered, I’ll blend it so it’s smooth like passata, but you don’t have to. A bit of tomato texture isn’t a deal breaker.

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