Ta da - I rolled out of bed this morning - just a bit before seven and after eating two bananas (Egyptian bananas are not very large) I headed out for a walk - yes you read it right - I am endeavouring to get back on the workout schedule - walked for a total of 40 minutes - had a 10 minute break - sat and watched the sea - must admit my pace certainly slowed as I got closer to home - but hey I did it. Now I am going to work on getting some baking done for Christmas - not doing a whole lot - but want a few favourites around.

I think I may have briefly touched on my new bread making endeavour - pocket or pita bread. Now I have no problem making 'western' bread - but I do struggle with making pocket bread - Aymn very kindly brought me 50 kg of flour - so I have been playing around learning how to make it 'properly'. Must admit that the first few tries were not very successful. I brought back yeast from Canada - and it works really well. But still did not have a very great success rate with getting the pockets to puff up. Aymn asked a friend of his what the problem was - showed him a 'sample' of the bread I had made - this friend is a baker - and he gave me a couple of tips - so following those tips I made bread the other day - 25 pockets and out of 25 17 puffed up - YEAH. Of course the downer was that Aymn came along and criticized the ones that did not puff - I had done this wrong or that wrong and next time do not do this or do that - ARGH - managed to really take the wind out of my sails - so to speak - but I got over it - and am quite proud of my accomplishments - would have taken pictures by I did not have my camera at the time - next time I will take pics and post them. Must admit the bread I make is much better than the stuff Aymn made - it was tough as cardboard - at least mine is quite tender. The recipe is very easy - but the trick is to get it to puff up - and I am slowly getting it right. I feel quite tickled when I have a piece of bread and I can make pocket sandwiches now - WOO HOO. Such a life I lead.