A Wee Bit About
Dean
&
Dough Your Own Way
I’m a passionate home cook and baker. The kitchen and my outdoor cooking setup, when the Scottish weather allows, have long been the places I take refuge from all of life’s stresses. I find it a relaxing and restorative process and then I reap further rewards watching family and friends enjoying the food – “scran” as we say in Scotland.
I’ve considered starting up a blog and sharing my ideas and recipes for a long time but I’ve always found a reason to stay in my comfort zone. Watching my young son experiencing new flavours for the first time recently and his cheeky smile when he samples some of my food eventually got me to the point where I thought “Why Not?”… And so here I am!
Background to the Blog
I’ve always been a sucker for a good woodfired pizza. The crisp, occasionally charred edges and smoky taste can’t be beaten and is levels above supermarkets and the standard takeaway pizza. Working full time for the NHS during the Covid-19, I was fortunate in a way to still be able to go to my place of work, earn, and get a change from the same 4 walls at home where others weren’t so lucky and were in some horrific situations at that time. The pandemic seen the long-term temporary closure of all hospitality venues and our go-to local takeaways. My routine pretty much became get up, go to work, go home, cook, go to sleep, repeat. There were no variables. It was impossible to break the trend, I fell out of love with cooking as it had become just another box to tick each day, rather than something to look forward to at the end of the day. Scrolling through social media one night, I came across an ad for pizza ovens. Having managed to build up some savings which I’d normally put towards a holiday, I thought these seemed like a thing of the past and bought myself an Igneus pizza oven instead and the rest is history. Despite the first few efforts leaving a lot to be desired, it reignited my passion for baking and cooking, and restored some enjoyment to life again.
So... Just Pizza?
Not at all! Pizza is my passion but I love all things culinary. My love for pizza making has seen me experiment with other baking ideas as the processes are similar for most bread products but my general love for cooking dates back way before I made my first homemade pizza. It goes back to being at school, going home and telling my mum how much I’d been enjoying cooking in my Home Economics classes and what we’d made that day, which led to her buying me my first recipe book – a general student cookbook covering a variety recipe origins and varying difficulties. It gave me a great understanding of different flavours, and an appreciation of simple recipes!
I’ll regularly be posting recipes with no bakes at all and enjoy making curries from scratch, pasta dishes, takeaway replicas and everything else!
And what about the name - Dough Your Own Way?
I like experimenting with flavours and I enjoy fusion, mixing traditional with things you wouldn’t normally consider matching them with. I’m a visualiser. I’ll often run by an idea in my head to my wife and she’ll laugh them off as being ridiculous, but I’ll roll with it and bash on anyway. Luckily, I can’t recall a time she hasn’t ate what I’ve cooked up, and then been forced to eat her words on top of that. It’s a tactic I’ve used often, and not just relating to food… After my wife’s numerous refusals to give in and get a dog, I pretended to work an overtime shift one Saturday and went and secretly brought back our fur baby Lewy in 2018. He’s adored by the whole family now, and my number 1 food taster, and ‘cleaner upper’ for any its and bits that end up on the floor. Life wouldn’t be the same without him.
So, as Frankie did it his way, I’m doughing it my way now and hopefully I can inspire you to do the same. Don’t be scared to try different things, you’ll learn from it. Always have trust in your own process!