Cook This Shit vol. 1

So, for my first blog in like...ever.  I decided I wanted to try something that I keep day dreaming about, and that is my own cooking blog.

Now, don't let that scare you.  We all know I don't have the energy or the time to actually maintain a real live blog with daily "kid pleasing" recipes or 100 different uses for flax seed or whatever other bullshit that mom bloggers who need a life tend to write about.

Nah, I'm just going to show you how to cook some shit in the most casual way possible.  And casual for me almost always involves a lot of swearing.  Like, if I ever published my own cookbook, I'm pretty sure it would be called Cook This Shit.

But whatever.  I like cooking and I like telling people how to do things, so for the very first issue, of Cook This Shit, we're going to tackle my favorite food of all time.  Pizza.

Here's the thing.  I love pizza.  I could eat pizza everyday and be totally satisfied.  If I had children, I would sell their souls for pizza.  If you leave me alone with your children, I'll probably attempt to sell their souls for pizza.  But I can't eat pizza everyday because I'm not in college anymore, I have shitty metabolism, and I'm way too afraid of the employees at Domino's judging the shit out of me for ordering their food everyday.

My solution to that problem is that sometimes I make pizza.  Mom bloggers and other bullshitters will try and tell you that IT'S SO EASY to make your own pizza at home.  I guess it is pretty easy to throw all that shit on some dough, but making the dough can be kind of a pain in the ass and I would much rather just order pizza.

But since I can't...

Okay, here's all the shit you're going to need for the dough, anyway.

- A heavy ass mixer with a dough hook.
- A ton of flour.
- Dry active yeast.
- Sugar
- Like a cup and a half of warm water.  (Not hot, goddammit!)
- Cooking spray.
- Two big ass bowls.
- A rubber spatula for scraping the sides of the bowl.

Not pictured: other shit you're going to need that I forgot to include in the group picture.

All right, step one.  Get your warm water and drop in like a tablespoon of dry active yeast.

Side note: I almost never measure anything.  I hate measuring.  Not because I think you should let your tastebuds guide you or whatever else those assholes on cooking shows say, but because I will do almost anything to avoid having to wash another dish.  I'm not going to dirty up half a dozen measuring spoons and cups so I can scrub them out later.  Fuck that.

Anyway, stir the yeast in the water so it starts to bubble a little bit.  Apparently yeast eats sugar, so you also put like a teaspoon of sugar in the mixture too.  Let it hang out for like 10 minutes.  It'll look kind of like this.

Dump that shit into the mixing bowl and then add a pinch of salt.  I don't know why.  I think you're just supposed to add salt to everything.

Now you just start adding flour, one cup at a time.  You add a cup, let it mix, then add another cup and let it mix until it looks like fucking pizza dough.  Usually this ends up being around 4.5 cups.  Make sure you scrape the sides of the bowl to get all that shit.

When it comes together as a dough, it'll look kind of like this.

Now at this point, hold onto your tits and crank the mixer up really high so it beats the shit out of that dough.  It'll probably make your whole counter shake, but you only have to do it for a couple of seconds and it'll get the dough all nice and collected in one big ball.  Ta-dah, bitches.

Okay, so take those two big ass bowls I made you get out earlier and spray the insides with cooking spray.  Now flour your hands a little bit, or else the dough's gonna stick to your hands and make you look like frickin Spiderman.

Take the big hunk of dough out of the mixer and rip it into two basically equal balls.

You don't have to knead because fuck that shit.  All you have to do is pull the dough a few times in your hand and form a ball that's smooth on the top with a butthole-looking seam on the bottom.

Put the dough ball in the bowl with the seam side down.  Then do the same for the other dough.

Cover both bowls with a towel and let them rise for two hours.

Those motherfuckers are going to get huge.  Here's what they look like two hours later.

Now do your best Chris Brown impression and punch the snot right outta those things.

Take the dough out of the bowl and do the same shit we already did.  Pull it around itself until you form a ball with a smooth top and seam on the bottom.  You know the drill.  Put that shit back in the bowl, cover, and let it go for another hour, or however long you want until you're ready to make some fucking pizza.

Okay, so here's the shit you're going to need for the pizza.

- Your dough.
- Sauce. (Okay, do you seriously not know what goes on a fucking pizza?)
- Cheese.
- Olive oil.
- Corn meal.
- Whatever other toppings you want.
- A pizza stone.
- A pizza peel.  (Oh, you're fancy, aren't you?  Hey, fancy!)

Put the pizza stone in your grill or oven and crank that shit.  Let it heat up for like half an hour.  You want that stone to get really really hot, because we're not Gwyneth Paltrow and we don't have a rustic fucking pizza oven in our yard, but we have a hunk of stone and that's the next best thing.

Spread out your dough.  You're supposed to spread it out and build your pizza on the pizza peel itself, but if you're cheap as fuck like me, you'll soon realize that you bought the tiniest pizza peel ever, and it's barely got room for a Totino's Pizza Roll on it.  So, use your best judgement.  You can always build your pizza on a baking sheet and then try to MacGyver that shit onto the stone later.  Whatever you do, make sure to sprinkle some corn meal underneath the dough, or you're going to have a hell of a time sliding it anywhere.

You like thin crust?  Get a rolling pin and spread that dough extra thin.  You like fluffy crust or you're just plain lazy?  Spread that shit out to the best of your ability and then pat yourself on the back because you did what you could.  Brush your crust with olive oil, or if you're feeling especially Paula Deen, garlic butter!!!!!

Now throw some shit all over your shit.  I'm talking sauce, cheese, and...other stuff.  This household is kosher, so we're not getting really exotic up in here.  In my dreams, my pizza is covered in a mound of pepperoni and sausage as high Mount Olympus, but this is real life.  Don't complain though, because it's still going to be fucking delicious.  This is your pizza and I'm not going to tell you how to top it.  Maybe you're one of those psychos who likes pineapple on pizza.  Do you, boo boo.

Now that your stone is heated and your pizza's looking iced as fuck, it's time to cook that shit.

Wiggle the pizza from the pizza peel onto your pizza stone, close the grill and let that shit cook for like 10-12 minutes.  You'll know when it's done because it'll look like a fucking pizza and your mouth will be watering.

Be careful getting the pizza back off the stone, now!  It's hot as fuck.  I know pizza is bae and you're going to want to attack it like Ryan Gosling in that rainy kiss scene from The Notebook, but you gotta exercise a little bit of restraint.  Get that shit on the pizza peel, put it on a cuttable surface and cut it into delicious slices.  Bonus tip: the pizza cutter also works great for Jaime Lannister-ing the hands of anybody who tries to get near your fucking pizza.  This is America.  We don't fucking share.  We eat what's ours.

The best part is, even when your pizza slips its way onto the stone like a drunken Lindsay Lohan, folding halfway over itself as it goes, it's still gonna come out looking fabulous as shit. 

Last step: enjoy motherfucker.

Thanks for reading, friendships.  Let me know here or back on Facebook if this stuff tickles your giggle button and you'd like to see more of it.

I'll see you soon (haha, yeah right) for the next issue of Cook This Shit!