In which it finally cools down a little.

Tuesday night, I made a delicious pizza.

I'm a little weird, in that I will freely admit that it's too hot to cook, and then go ahead and make a pizza from scratch. For some reason, it seems less hot to let dough rise and then throw it and the toppings into a 450 degree oven. Honestly, it would have been cooler to just boil some pasta, steam some vegetables, and drizzle the lot with olive oil and parm. But of course, I'm a moron.

Luckily, we did discover one of the benefits of hot weather. It helps make beautiful pizza dough. Between the heat of the water I used, and the heat of the apartment, that dough doubled in size with a quickness, and it definitely didn't have the typical problem of not being stretchy. Because it was hot - apparently Jesse puts it in the fridge sometimes, and we've come to find that doesn't yield the best results. Also, I definitely didn't use as much flour as I should have, because it was so hot out and for some reason, it just didn't need as much flour.

I stretched the dough after it rose, and covered it with a sliced yellow tomato, some asparagus and green beans, and parmesan, and some smushed garlic cloves. It baked at 450 for probably about 25 minutes, long enough to turn the apartment into a sauna. It was miserable, but the pizza was delicious. I love making pizza.

Wednesday night, we went shopping and found out some effing frustrating news. Apparently our new apartment won't be ready tomorrow, which is when we were promised it. It's when I signed a lease for. And yet, we don't get to move in, which basically screws us over in terms of moving and painting and getting unpacked and stuff. So, Wednesday night we were legitimately in need of some liquid refreshment. We met our friends at Kettle of Fish, and imbibed a few pints of Coney Island Lager (Sword Swallower, primarily) before arriving home around 11 pm.

I set some chicken breasts, which I'd pounded pretty thin, to marinate in a very similar marinade to the one I did for the Flank Steak last entry. Then, I decided I wanted to try and make a risotto out of a wild and brown rice blend I'd been intrigued by at Trader Joe's. So, I prepared the risotto in the usual way, except that I didn't add any mushrooms or bleu cheese. I just added a lump of butter and some shredded parmesan at the end. I think that since this rice isn't like arborio, it needed a little more stock, a little more time. Maybe some water. But the roommates concurred that the chewiness added something to the risotto. I'd recommend trying it sometime. Make sure that you sautee it enought.

Thursday night, I made panini. It was supposed to be soup and sammiches, but it ended up just being panini. I made some tuna salad, with a little mayonnaise, a little olive oil, green pickle relish (because I didn't have any dill pickles), chili powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper. I put some butter on my grill pan and put the bread down with some meunster cheese. I put the tuna on top, another slice of cheese, and another piece of bread. Then, to make it a panino, I put a small skillet with a can of chickpeas on top, to smush the bread. Obviously, flip, butter the pan, repeat. They were pretty yum-tastic.

Last night, we were supposed to have steak again (because it was so good last time), but instead we met some friends for delicious drinks, and then delicious dinner. And then, we went back to our friends Laura and Steele's apartment and had some of Steele's latest home-brewed beer. So, tonight, we will have the skirt steak, with possibly a mixed-grain salad and some young field greens..... or just with our bare hands. Y'know, whichever.