I'm not sure when it started but a few years ago Husband and I began trying out different cocktails.  We started with simple drinks like Rum & Coke and Gin & Tonic.  We still drink these, but we've also tried lots of other types of drinks. 

Lately its been smoothies, ‘adult’ versions of smoothies that is, where we combine milk, ice, and various alcohols.  These make a really nice in-home movie night drink with some popcorn or just on their own. We enjoy them all year long - even in the winter.  Of course we eagerly ate ice cream on the coldest Buffalo winter nights when we were in college so perhaps we're just indifferent to the cold effect.  At any rate, our current favorite smoothie is what we call a "banana-coffee-smoothie".  While we really improvise each time we make it the general recipe is:

• 1 Banana
• 3 shots Kahlua
• 2 shots Vodka
• 1 shot Baileys Irish Crème
• 1/4 cup milk
• 3 cups ice

Blend until smooth adding more ice or milk to achieve desired consistency. 

Yeild:  about 4 drinks.

We vary this "recipe" by adding different alcohols such as Tequila or Rum instead of, or in addition to, the Vodka; dashes of orange liquor or Crème de Menthe for a surprise taste; and tonic water with more ice if we have some around that we want to use up.  Husband also likes to add some coffee beans for a bit of texture and added coffee flavor.  As a result the drinks never really come out the same more than once but that doesn't matter they always seem to taste great....

I don't consider making homemade pizza dough very time consuming or difficult. OK, so it does take about 2 hours but the vast majority of that time is for the dough to rise.  If you are home a couple of hours before you want to eat, such as on the weekend or if you are lucky enough to work from home, then making pizza dough is possible.  As for being difficult, the only part I find difficult is shaping the dough.  It takes a bit of patience to get the dough into the shape you want, but does it really matter?  To me the shape of the pizza isn’t a big deal.

What can be a big deal is finding the right pizza dough recipe that works for you.  This leads to my current quest - The quest to find an awesome pizza dough recipe.  I admit the quest has only just begun because I haven't made many pizza dough recipes yet, but I'm devoted to finding that awesome recipe.  What do I have so far?  Well, that initial pizza I spoke about earlier used a dough recipe from an old cookbook I have called "The Pizza Book" by Evelyne Slomon.  The recipe is very straightforward and somewhat plain.  Not that anything was wrong with the resulting pizza dough but nothing stood out about it either. The pizza itself was great.  Also from the same cookbook, it was a variation of “Pizza Verdura” called “Pizza alla Erbazzone” that consisted of cooked Swiss chard, smoked Gouda cheese, and prosciutto – yum!

Interestingly, “The Pizza Book” dough recipe is very similar to one recently in Bon Appetite  except that the Bon Appetite recipe makes a bit less dough and uses a bit more salt.  Years ago, when I lived in Houston, Husband and I used to make amazing whole wheat pizza dough from a friends cookbook.  Sadly, we lost the recipe when we gave back the cookbook (don't get me started on loosing recipes... ugh!).  But, I've recently seen a few whole wheat pizza dough recipes posted on various places that I'm going to try including one from Eating Well and one from 101 CookBooks.

So, I already have a few pizza dough recipes to try and this weekend I'm going to try the Bon Appetite recipe. Let me know if you have a favorite pizza dough recipe - I'd love more to try...