A Homebrew and Homemade Pie

A few times a week Chris and I indulge ourselves in an at home "date night." Last night, was one of those nights. We didn't go to the gym and decided it was a pizza, beer, and movie night. It's been kind of cold the last few days here in Chicago, so why not stay home? Here goes:

I make a really simple pizza dough:

1 1/2 Cups of hot water
1 tsp. of active dry yeast
4 Cups of all purpose flour
1 tsp. Salt
1/3 C of olive oil(I infuse my olive oil with herbs, I used basil infused for this)

Activate the yeast by sprinkling it in the hot water(about 115 degrees), let it sit for a few minutes. It'll start looking a little frothy.
In a stand mixer(paddle attachment), mix together the salt and flour. Then slowly drizzle in the olive oil while mixing on low. Next up, the yeast and water. Once that is in, mix the dough for a minute or two. It will start forming into a nice gooey ball for ya. Once it's fully mixed, you're ready to let it rise.
I like to transfer the dough to a new bowl, but you can leave it in the mixing bowl. Make sure you rub some olive oil all over the bowl to keep the dough from sticking. Also, toss the dough around to make sure the entire ball is coated. Then cover it with plastic wrap and let it do its thing!

Rise, my pretty, rise! It'll take about an hour. But honestly, let it sit as long as you can. The longer,the better. You can store this puppy for up to 3 days in the refrigerator in an air tight container :-)

Looking good! Doubled in size.


Now then, the fun part. Throw some flour down on the counter and knead the dough a bit. It won't take much. This dough should be very easy to handle. I had the pleasure of working in a pizza joint when I was younger, so I'm pretty experienced at making a pie. You can spread this dough on a circle pan or a rectangular one. Your choice, I chose circle. The trick with pizza dough is to not let it win. It's going to try to bounce back and not expand onto the pan fully. But you have to force it, it'll give in before you do. You want to make sure you get the dough stretched all the way to the edge of the pan. As it cooks it will shrink. Trust me on this.

So, once you have it all the way to the edge of the pan and the crust size to your liking, throw your favorite sauce and toppings on. This shouldn't take longer than 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven-unless you're like my mom and like your pizza crust practically burnt.

Chris was excited!

Our finished product:

This, a movie, and a beer that Chris brewed=superb!

And So it Begins...

So, I, in all my usual randomness, have decided to start a blog. I'm entirely new at this and whoever decides to read this, get ready for a(hopefully) interesting adventure. Going to say this upfront: most of what is posted on here is going to be about my passion,COOKING.

I know what you're thinking, "Really, another cooking blog? Pioneer Woman already did that." Which is true, there are metric crap tons of cooking blogs out there. But hopefully I'm capable of at least attracting your attention for a millisecond and you learn a little somethin', somethin' about easy-yet refined- cooking.

My style of cooking is kind of, well, all over the place. I have so many interests and am a firm believer in broadening your horizons and diving head first into something completely unknown to you. I like to goof off with food,experiment, and it usually comes out very well. Let's face it, there is SO much you can do with food.

Let the journey begin...