A Little Lazy Pizza Party

If there's any guaranteed way to lure people to your apartment, it's pizza, or at least the offer of pizza. In my day, pizza 'n pop was the surest way to get people to join your after school club. Fat JJ would basically attend anything so long as pizza n' pop were billed on florescent half-sheets.

I hate working with yeast as much as anybody else. After several failed attempts, I've completely given up. I tip my hat to anyone who can make bread without a machine, or make pizza dough that actually works. Instead, I buy my pizza dough - because this is America and we pay for what we don't feel like doing ourselves. The good people at Trader Joe's do a really great job making dough at a reasonable price. To me, the selling point of pizza isn't the dough but rather, the toppings - meat.

Sausage-Goat Cheese Pizza with Caramelized Onions 

Chances are, if we've ever slept together I've made you this pizza. It's sort of a variation on something I had once at Taverna 750. If it weren't on a bed of carbs it would almost be healthy. If you like a spicy meata'ball this is up your alley. In lieu of a traditional pizza sauce, you use the pesto-like-byproduct of the caramelized onions. As you're soon to find out, caramelizing onions is very simple. If you're making this for an apartment date, be advised, you'll both be smelly and/or gassy afterward. Use that tip as you see fit. 

you will need the following: 

1 lazy pizza dough ball 

1 onion (sliced very thin) 

1 large Italian sausage 

goat cheese 

dry thyme or Italian herb blend

olive oil 

pinch of sugar

red pepper flakes

Step 1: Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a skillet. Toss in thinly sliced onions with some herbs and let simmer on low heat for about twenty minutes, or until flaccid. Afterward, sprinkle onions with sugar and let simmer about ten more minutes. Boom, caramelized. 

Step 2: Cook your fat Italian sausage in a pool of water in a skillet until the outside looks done. Once your meat is cool enough to handle, slice it thin. 

Step 3: Stretch your lazy dough onto an oiled baking sheet. Rub a little oil on top of the crust and season with herbs. 

Step 4: Set your oven to 425 and start assembling. A.) Spread your onions on dough. B.) Top with meat. C.) Top with flecks of goat cheese. Bake pizza for about 15 minutes or until meat is no longer pink. 

Pairs well with any Red Box movie, but nothing too serious or graphic. And no fucking super action comic book shit. 

A Little Pot (Pie) o' Gold

I give up on eating healthy. If it's never going to feel like beach season, I'm just gonna get as fat as I've always wanted. Hopefully it will lead to something great like an amazing career or diabetes. Since it's Pie Day, I figured it was an appropriate time to post this (even though I actually made these to eat while watching the Oscars stoned). This is not my first pot pie rodeo, I made pot pie once before, but it got everyone sick to their butts. This time around, I'm a little bit wiser.  This will also serve as my St. Patrick's Day recipe, since it contains potatoes and it's a pot of gold etc. That being said, I fucking hate St. Patrick's Day. It should just be renamed St. Fratboy's Day. The mere sight of Bros and Trixies wearing stupid green sport team shirts and ridiculous accessories boils my blood. Each seventeenth of March I go into a state of semi-hibernation, only leaving the house for Thin Mints and cat food. This year I've got a few pies to bake for a party, so fuck off everybody. 

Roasted Root Veggie Pot Pies

There's nothing sadder than a $.35 pot pie that sits freezer burning over the years, waiting for you to get just hungry enough to eat it. I made my own! As stated above, I made a pot pie once that caused everyone some digestive mayhem. This time around I opted not to use meat as I think the meat grease is what did people in. This was entirely off the cuff, and the fact that it materialized into anything is impressive. Since sweet potatoes were used in these, they were much sweeter than I expected - in the most delicious way. Some people make pot pies with a full double crust, but I like the look of just a pastry topper, plus it's easier. 

you will need the following: 

for pastry

3/4 c flour

1/2 stick butter

1/2 tsp salt 

garlic salt

herbs

1 tbsp shredded cheddar (opt.)

splash of cold water

for filling

1 small sweet potato (peeled and cubed)

3 carrots 

2 celery stalks

1/2 yellow onion

1/2 c flour

1/2 stick butter

3/4 c whole milk

3/4 c vegetable stock

fresh or dry thyme

salt & pepper

Step 1: Set oven to 375. Line a baking sheet with foil and dowse cubed sweet potatoes and carrots in olive oil, thyme, salt and pepper. Roast for about thirty minutes. 

Step 2: In the meantime, mix dry ingredients and cut in the butter. Using a pastry cutter or a large spoon work butter into flour mixture until crumbly. Add cold water one tablespoon at a time until desired consistency. Roll into a ball and chill for a few minutes. Roll out pastry and return to fridge until ready to use. 

Step 3: Melt half a stick of butter in a heavy-bottomed pot. Cook onion and celery in butter with lots of thyme until translucent. 

Step 4: Add half cup flour and heat for only a minute on very low heat. Slowly start adding the stock. Then add milk and begin whisking the mixture together. Add in roasted veggies. Use lots of salt and pepper, otherwise it's gonna taste very bland. 

Step 5: Pour mixture into pot pie dishes. Top with pastry. Brush with milk. Cut vent holes. Bake pies on a baking sheet for about 45 minutes. Allow to cool before serving. 

A Little Spineless Chicken Dinner

Brace yourself reader, this entry contains some graphic and arousing chicken dismemberment photos. Friends and lovers if you feel like you haven't seen me in awhile, it's because I'm a cold-weather recluse. Why go out when you have a cat and a dead chicken? This chicken literally saved my life. I was seconds away from using a Pizza Hut coupon until I accidentally read the yelp reviews for said Pizza Hut. Apparently everyone who used this coupon had a negative experience. Bummer. I was so looking forward to reliving those Book-It and Fat JJ memories. 

For most kids, the weekend was a time to have friends sleep over and eat delivery pizza. Since I was fat and gay, I didn't really have much of a social life.  When mom and dad went out, I turned to mom's dusty cookbooks for companionship. This relationship with weekend baking has continued into my adult years. Friday nights are best passed alone in your kitchen, only now I cry into a dirty martini instead of generic caffeine-free diet cola. 

Spatchcocked Chicken

There are few things in this world I love more than home-butchering. I discovered this method of flat-roasting a chicken via the Smitten Kitchen cookbook. It's unbelievably easy and makes for the best roasted chickens I've ever had. It's quick and easy, but also makes you seem like an amazing cook even though the oven does most if not all of the work. I used to make this once a week with my friend until we realized how sick eating half a chicken each made us feel. Now we only do it once a month. Chefs be warned, if cutting a chicken's backbone out with a pair of kitchen sheers makes you queazy, this is probably not the recipe for you. Personally, I have no problem with it, and I'll gladly come to your house and remove chicken bones from anywhere you put them. 

you will need the following: 

1 3-4lb chicken (dead, or alive if you like a challenge)

Fresh rosemary

garlic

olive oil

butter

salt & pepper

Step 1: Oven to 450. Turn clean chicken onto its breast and find the backbone. Starting at the tail, cut along the backbone with a pair of sturdy kitchen sheers all the way to the neck. Hearing the bones crack is natural and a good indication that you're doing it right. 

Step 2: Remove backbone, you may have to jimmy it out of there. Line the cavity with rosemary, garlic, olive oil and whatever spices you like. 

Step 3: Line a baking sheet with foil and sprinkle with olive oil and salt. Place chicken on sheet, breast side up. Cut slits in the skin and push butter beneath. Rub the chicken in a small amount of oil and sprinkle with more seasoning. 

Step 4: Roast at 450 for about an hour or until a thermometer reads 165. Allow to rest about ten minutes before slicing off limbs and flesh. It falls right off the bone. 

A Little Kitchen Shoe Cobbler

Salt Removal Act 

Son of a bitch if it didn't snow again last night. Here in the Midwest, we've finally learned to accept negative temperatures being the norm, and new cleverly named snowstorms everyday. My personal favorite, the Saskatchewan Screamer. All this weather makes it so the only shoes you can wear are boots. Why even invest in nice boots when they'll only get salt-cured after walking two blocks in slush. I've even gotten to resent my boots. Remember other shoes? Me neither. I tried to wear my favorite pair of vintage loafers on Valentine's Day, only to have them seemingly destroyed by the salt. There is nothing worse than salt-rimmed shoes. Good news though! You can use two kitchen basics to wash and condition your shoes! It actually works, unlike some at-home methods like coke bottle abortions. This trick will only work on finished leather. If you were dumb enough to buy suede shoes and wear them in snow or rain, it's your own fault they're ruined.

you will need the following 

Old salty shoes

1 tbsp white wine vinegar

1 cup cold water

vegetable oil

heavy duty paper towels

Step 1: Mix tablespoon vinegar with cup of cold water. Mix with a spoon. Dip cotton balls or paper towels in mixture and gently scrub salt off. The acid will break down the salt so you don't ruin the finish by over-scrubbing. 

Step 2: Leather is skin, and skin is what your body is covered in. When you feel dry in the winter, you put lotion on. Using paper towels, smear the shoes in vegetable oil. Vegetable oil is going to basically hydrate the leather that has been drying out under all that salt. The oil will keep the leather pliable so it's not as likely to pull away from the sole. A real live cobbler once taught me this trick. 

Step 3: You may want to repeat the oil step a few times. The leather will quickly absorb the oil. Now you just want to wait another six months until it's actually dry and clean enough out to wear these shoes again.