Pizzas on the Grill

I've been wanting to make pizzas on the grill for years. Unfortunately, apartment living doesn't accommodate grilling very well - so I haven't had a chance to do it until recently. Over the 4th of July, my family spent the weekend together fishing, boating, relaxing and eating. Let's just say, my family likes to cook. We had to keep a cooler in front of the refrigerator door just to keep it shut... and we were only there for 3 days.

I did some research of pizza grilling from the Serious Eats food blog (a great resource if you haven't checked it out yet). I'm glad I did some reading ahead of time, because I felt pretty confident that my pizzas were going to turn out. When it came to the actual grilling though, my impatience came out. I didn't let the grill get hot enough - so while the pizza crust is only supposed to take maybe a minute to cook - it took more like 6 minutes. Not a big deal, but I was looking forward to the 'move quickly if you want it to turn out' action. I don't like to wait.

For the pizza I used The Best Pizza Dough Ever recipe. The recipe makes 6 pizza crusts, so I made two batches about three days ahead of time. For the toppings, I used heirloom cherry tomatoes, bacon, arugula and fresh mozzarella cheese from Crave Brothers Farmstead Cheese. To top it off, I sprinkled some extra virgin olive oil and some Italian seasoning.

For dessert, I used the same dough, but spread Nutella on top and added cut up pineapple, strawberries, blueberries and drizzled it with honey. Yeah, it was awesome. I got so into it that I didn't take a photo.

The best advice I can give is to have everything ready - sitting next to the grill. Do all of your prep and play in your head how this is going to go. If your grill is hot enough, the process will go very quickly and you want to be ready for it.  If you are going to use toppings that need to be warm or cooked, this need to be done ahead of time as well. 

Try it out this summer - I would love to see what you come up with!