Grill Pizza!

So it seems that my favorite thing to cook this summer is pizza, fired up over our grill. If you’ve never partaken of the joy that is grill pizza, you’re really missing out. Pizza done on the grill is perfect. The crust gets crispy with grill marks but is still soft and chewy in the middle, like pizza done in a wood oven, but it’s fast and easy enough to do at home. Toppings like veggies get just done enough that they still have some crunch, and cheese gets all gooey and good.

Our approach to pizza year round (regular oven or grill) is this: it starts and ends with good homemade pizza dough. I used to buy premade dough, until I suddenly realized how easy it is to do it yourself! I’m a big fan of this recipe from the great Jim Leahy (of no-knead bread fame) but I also like this one a lot, especially since I often make pizza on the fly, leaving little time for rising.

As for toppings, I like to keep some of the mozzarella they make in our local Whole Foods store on hand, and aside from that, and a little bit of olive oil, it’s basically a free for all where anything and everything that’s in our fridge is fair game. Favorite toppings so far this summer include summer squash especially patty pan, garlic scapes, broccolli, and if we have some meat eaters in the house, pepperoni. But I’m sure that’s all going to change as well get closer to fall and the veggies start to change.

The other trick to grill pizza (aside from the dough) is making sure it cooks all the way through. You accomplish this by grilling the untopped dough (as seen in the top right picture above) for a few minutes, until it starts to show signs of being cooked (grill marks, feeling cooked, etc). Then you flip the dough over, so the uncooked side is now closest to the heat. Now is when you add the toppings. And the pizza dough should be pretty solid at this point, so feel free to pile on those toppings! Just make sure you have a cookie sheet or pizza peel at the ready to get the pie off the grill when it’s done. Then eat. Preferably with wine. Or beer!

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