Cooking with me four (photo heavy)

Nothing terribly difficult today. I'm going to share my recipe for grilling pizza, complete with photos.

The idea came to us one day when my husband sent me a link to Simply Recipes, and we got to thinking, could we do that, it sounds really good!?

So we made it, following the recipe as exactly as we could, being that I don't have a pizza stone, or peel (that's that funny flat board thing you see guys using at pizza joints.) So, if you want a pretty generic recipe, go there, and you won't be disappointed. We were quite please.

However.

There's always a however, isn't there?

We thought it needed something... something else. So I started experimenting, and this is what I came up with.

The recipe is close, but not the same, but I still wanted to give credit, where it was due, to the gent over at Simply Recipes for his great recipe and the ideas that germinated.

The photographer for most of these was my lovely Husband, and most excellent sous chef!

Grilled Pizza:
Prep time: 2 hours for dough, about 30 min to cook

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup very warm water
1 package dry yeast (or 2 1/4 teaspoons) I use Fleischmann's, only. I'm picky, but you can use any
2 T cooking oil
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt
3 cups flour, all purpose, plus some for dusting
1/2 cup corn meal mix, the Jiffy stuff works perfectly,


Pour your warm water (it should feel warm to the inside of your wrist, but not hot. If it's hot, you'll kill the yeast) into a large bowl. Sprinkle the yeast on top, along with the sugar, oil and milk. Let this sit on the counter for about five minutes, to let the yeast "bloom" [or fuzz, we always called it "fuzzing the yeast"].

Give it a good whisk and then add in the corn meal mix and salt; switching to a wooden spoon, or a kitchen mixer with a dough hook if you have one, beat in the flour, one cup at a time. Depending on how humid it is, you might need a little more.

Turn your ball out onto a lightly floured counter, and don't forget to flour your hands, and knead for about 5-10 minutes.  You can add more dough as you need to,a little at a time, to keep it from sticking.

The dough will feel smooth and elastic when it's ready. If you have said kitchen mixer with dough hook, let it do its thing.

Pour about 2-3 tablespoons of cooking oil into the bottom of that bowl. Swish it around to grease the bowl, and then put the dough ball in it. While it's in the bowl, knead it again for 30 seconds, beating the oil into the dough, and spreading it all over the ball. It will feel really bizarre, but it will taste awesome.

Cover and set aside to rise, for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until it's double. Make sure it's safe from drafts. [You can tell it's ready when you poke the dough with your finger, and the dent stays. The dough will appear to deflate.]

Put the coals on now. You want them to get to about 250 to 300 F. It usually takes ours about 15 minutes or so. That will give you time to divide the dough and get your ingredients out.

Punch down the dough, pour it out onto that still floury counter.*

Cut the dough in half, and again. I usually grease a muffin tin to work with, and one batch gives me 4 decent sized pizzas to work with. This recipe doubles very easily. The original recipe calls for it to make 2 10inch pizzas, I make my grilled pizzas roughly hand sized, because they're easier to work with, that way.


For our pizza we used pepperoni, marinara sauce and mozzarella, and barbeque, caramelised onions and mozzarella. You can use any toppings, just do not over load them! You want to go light, because otherwise they won't cook through, and you'll have burned crush and unmelted cheese.**
We also get our ingredients into bowls so they are easier to work with, outside, and so we don't melt an entire 7 pound bag of mozzarella cheese in the Arizona heat.

I use a foil covered jelly-roll pan and a flat, plastic cutting board primarily. You can see here, I've got three rolled out, and several ready to go. Just flatten out the dough with your fingers, until it's 1/8 inch thick or so. It won't be perfectly round, and that really doesn't matter.

I also use more of that cornmeal mix to flour my foil. That way it doesn't stick, and adds more cornmeal to the outside... this gives the pizza a sweet smoky flavour.


I don't know why Google insisted on uploading that photo side-ways, and I don't know how to fix it. I'm sorry! As you can see you just place the dough on the grill and then close the lid, to let it cook.


A few minutes later-- 3-5 usually-- you'll open the grill and see them all bubbly.



 Carefully flip them over and on to your flat-- cooked side up., they'll look kinda weird, but trust me on this one.



Add your ingredients. Little bit of sauce, then I tossed the onions and chicken down, then cheese.

 Did the pepperoni on top, here, but the order doesn't seem to matter much.


 Carefully put them back on the grill. The bottom will slide onto the spatula/flipper you're using, if you remember a little corn meal on the flat.


This one here, we've got a half-and half barbequed chicken and pepperoni, a regular barbequed chicken, and one plain cheese-bread. This recipe makes for awesome bread sticks, too, and we usually make at least one of them into a bread stick.


Close the grill and them cook another 3-5. If you have a cooler grill it might take longer. Then, pull them off!

The finished product:
Cheese pizza

Pepperoni

Barbequed chicken with caramelized onions




 Just let them cool and put them in an air-tight plastic container, or foil, if there is any left. They reheat in the microwave fairly well, as microwaved anything goes; they reheat in the oven on 350 for about 10 min, and are lovely.

If you have a pizza flat, then by all means, make them larger; if you're having dinner guests, this is a fun way to feed a lot of children, and adults like it too.

Enjoy!






*I am a messy cook. When I'm making bread I don't clean the flour off the counter until I'm finished with it, I pile the flour up and over it with a slightly damp paper towel just in case there's an errant housefly. Saves on the clean up, and it doesn't waste flour, you'll use just about all of the bits left over on the last turn.

**We've used browned ground turkey, mushrooms, pickled artichokes, as well as Canadian bacon. Whatever you want to eat, put it on the pizza.


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