Grilled Pizza

So where were we? Grilled pizza, right. Well, this wasn't our first foray into the world of grilled pizza, but it was our first successful attempt. Nothing too horrific happened the first time. The dough didn't fall between the grates and into the coals; there was no pizza on fire or anything like that. The pizza turned out . . . just not well; not crispy enough, nothing exciting or terribly delicious. And, quite happy with the pizza done on our oven stone, we never went back. But Giada was on the Today Show the morning of the Fourth of July and she was grilling steak. That caught my attention because we had planned to make steak too. For an appetizer she broke out some flat breads and proceeded to grill and top them with interesting things like prosciutto and ricotta. She called them Piadini. Hmmm... I thought to myself. I could pull this off today without much trouble. I've got some pizza dough balls in the freezer and always an interesting assortment of cheeses in the fridge. So the day passed with a parade and playing outside and the dough balls defrosted.

When it came time to start the coals for dinner, I shaped the dough into little pizzas. This is just my standard pizza dough recipe which will make four pizzas. But, instead of using my regular size ball to make one 12-inch pizza, I divided it in half to make smaller ones. This made the dough much easier to move from board to grill when it is stretched out. We sprayed it with olive oil and put it on a hot fire. When it was brown, we flipped it and topped it, closed the grill and let the topping heat through and the bottom brown.

Instead of a margherita pizza with fresh sliced tomato and fresh mozzerella, I used a sun dried tomato pesto (Cibo brand) and fresh sliced mozz. We like the pesto better because it had so much pronounced flavor, it stood up well to the grilled dough. For our second pizza, we used a smaller amount of the pesto, then some small diced leftover grilled veg. (onions, peppers, and zucchini from our previous night's dinner) and dollops of goat cheese. This one we really liked too. The grilled flavor veggies complimented the grilled flat bread and creamy goat cheese pulled it all together. We topped both cooked pizzas with some chopped basil from the garden. (I love summer!)

And I can't resist showing you the mesclun salad mix you get from Henry's Farmstand at Evanston Farmers Market. They put flowers in it. Isn't is great?