I’ve always loved cooking, but until recently, my love for it was less than nurtured. The Patient Wife changed that and encouraged me to make mistakes and learn in the kitchen. One day recently, she asked me to make pizza dough by following a simple recipe. It was so simple, in fact, that I decided to add my own flair to it. This recipe is so flexible and has so much room for improvement that it’s now our stand-by meal for any night of the week. We keep a ziploc baggie of it in our fridge in case a friend joins us for dinner or if we get lazy and don’t go to the store.

To make this, your life will be loads easier if you have a stand mixer and a mortar and pestle. They aren’t necessary, but they’re a HUGE help. I was terrified of Bertha, our pink Kitchen-Aid mixer, but a quick call to Crimson Cinder for help (she said “Turn it to 2 and leave it”) and I was over that.

You’ll need the following:

4 cups of flour

1.5 cups + 2 Tbs of 115° water (for the yeast)

1 tsp active dry yeast

2 Tbs olive oil

4 Tbs Garlic Powder

4 Tbs Dried Rosemary

2 Tbs Parsley Flakes

4 Tbs Red Pepper Flakes

1. Make sure the water is at 110 degrees so the yeast will activate. Put the teaspoon of yeast into the water. Let it sit 10 minutes. You’ll know it’s ready by the small amount of foam on top of the water.

2. While the yeast is yeasting, dump the rosemary, parsley, and red pepper flakes into the mortar and pestle. Grind the frick out of it until its a nice powder.

3. Combine the flour, water, yeast, garlic, ground herbs, and olive oil in a big mixing bowl. It’ll look like throw-up but trust me, this is going to be a beautiful thing.

4. Mix by hand or with a mixer until all dough is together, no clumps are on the bottom of the bowl, and the dough is smooth and has a dull shine. If you’re using a mixer as I did, make sure you use the bread hook and your speed is at the lowest setting.

5. Pull the big clump of dough (it should be one giant piece by now) out and hold it while you spray the mixing bowl with Pam or oil or whatever. Put the dough back in the bowl. Cover with a towel.

6. Put the whole thing in the oven. Turn it to the lowest setting (usually marked as “Warm”) and leave it on for no more than a minute.

7. Turn the oven off. Leave it alone and let it sit in the oven for 2 hours or until it has doubled in size.

As I said before, there is a LOT of room in this recipe to add your own style. Do you hate garlic? Add onion powder instead.

Add more red pepper flakes.

Add some sage.

Don’t add a damn thing.

Dye it red and make Christmas dough.

Some pizzerias even let it sit in their refrigerator for ten-fourteen days to ferment. Make sure it stays cool and it’s stored in a ziploc bag or a tupperware that can be vented, otherwise it’ll go splodey. At the end of the fermentation period, it should smell distinctly like alcohol or even beer. Don’t worry, the alcohol will bake off during cooking, but if you eat a bite or two I won’t say a word.

If you make this dough, let me know how it turned out. If I like your response, I’ll send you something awesome.

Tomorrow, I’ll show you how to use this dough to make a skillet deep-dish pizza that will impress your wife, pay your bills, and wash your clothes.

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