Grilled Pizza

Grilled pizza is kind of amazing.  The crust gets nice and crispy on the outside, but soft and chewy on the inside.  The grill gives it this delicious charred flavor that you just can't get out of an oven.  Plus, nothing beats not having to turn out the oven and heat up the house when it's already 104* outside.  I like making "specialty" pizzas when we grill pizza, but this would be just as good with pepperoni, or whatever other kind of toppings you want.  

Grilled Pizza

What You Need:

1/2 cup warm water

1 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

Olive oil

Sun-dried tomato pesto (or other pizza sauce of your choice)

Caramelized onions, artichoke hearts and goat cheese (or pizza toppings of your choice)

What You Do:

Turn your oven on to warm (200*) for about 5 minutes, then turn it off.  Sprinkle yeast over warm water and let sit for about 5 minutes.  Mix together with flour and salt until a rough, craggy mess forms.  Turn the dough and any loose bites out onto a lightly floured counter and knead until the dough becomes smooth and elastic.  Coat a bowl with olive oil, place the dough in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap.  Put the dough in the oven and let sit for 30 minutes, or until the dough has doubled.  

Once the dough has risen, roll out into a circle about 1/2 inch thick on a lightly floured counter.  At this point you also want to turn on the grill to medium high.  Brush olive oil on one side of the dough and put it olive oil side down onto the grill.  Brush some olive oil on the top side of the dough.  Once the dough bubbles on the surface and there are dark grill marks on the bottom of the crust pull off the grill.  Put it cooked side up on a pizza stone or baking sheet and put the toppings on the crust.  Gently slide the pizza back onto the grill and cook for a few more minutes until the bottom has dark grill marks.   

And there you have it, grilled pizza.  It really could not be easier.  If you don't feel like grilling you can always make this in the oven.  Bake the pizza at 450* for 17 minutes, until the crust is golden brown and crispy.  But I highly, highly suggest you try grilling pizza at least once.  It will change your life.  Seriously.

Mini Mondays Gameday Edition: Calzones

In honor of the first Mini Monday of "Football Season" (which really is a season around here) I wanted  to make something that would be perfect to snack on while watching the game.  No forks or knives required.  So I thought about it, and decided calzones (or as Cole calls them: cal-zone-ays) were the winning the idea.  Making them mini is perfect because you can make a bunch different kinds, you don't have to decide on just one kind like you do when you make pizza.

Mini Calzones

What you need:

Pizza dough (click here for a recipe)

Whatever toppings your little heart desires

Small container of ricotta cheese

1/2 cup approx. shredded mozzarella cheese

2 eggs

Marinara sauce

What you do:

Prepare pizza dough.  Preheat oven to 400*.  Chop up whatever toppings you want for you calzones.  I used sausage, bacon, jalapenos, onion, bell pepper, pineapple and ham.  I was so excited for these because I got Hawaiian calzones.  We don't really make Hawaiian pizza because Cole doesn't like it, but this way I got to make my own little mini Hawaiian calzones! 

Mix ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese and one egg together.  Take a golfball size piece of dough and roll it out pretty thin.  Put a small scoop of the cheese mixture in the middle, then add whatever toppings you want.  Fold the dough over so you have a little half circle shape.  Press the edges closed with a fork and brush eggwash over the top of the calzone.  Bake for 15 minutes, until crust is golden brown.  Serve with marinara sauce for dipping.   

Homemade Pizza

Fact: Pizza is delicious.  Homemade pizza is EVEN MORE delicious, because you can customize it however you want and add tons and tons of toppings.  Pizza places are SO stingy when it comes to toppings.  Am I right?  For a while Cole and I were making our homemade pizzas with the Jiffy crust mix, and for a box mix it's actually really good.  But, it's really easy to make 100% homemade.  You can even make a double (or triple) batch and store the extra dough in the freezer.  Then you just pull it out in the morning, and *bam* you have homemade pizza in 30 minutes or less at night!

Pizza Dough

(adapted from The Pioneer Woman)

What you need:

1 tsp yeast

3/4 warm water (not boiling, not lukewarm)

2 cups flour

3/4 tsp salt

3 T olive oil

Various seasonings of your choice (I use garlic, oregano and Italian seasoning)

What you do:

Sprinkle yeast over warm water.  Let stand for a few minutes and do it's thing.  Meanwhile, in a mixer combine the flour and salt.  With the mixer on low slowly drizzle in the olive oil.  Then pour the yeast/water mixture and mix until just combined.  The dough will be sticky. 

 Coat a separate bowl with a little bit of olive oil.  Form the dough into a ball and toss it in the olive oil.  Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and let it rise for a 1-2 hours.  

*Note- According to the Pioneer Woman, you can store the dough in the fridge and until you need it and it's best to make the dough at least 24 hours in advance.  I'll be honest, I never think about it early enough.  I usually decide that afternoon I want pizza, so I make the dough then.  Or I'll pull the pre-made dough out of the freezer in the morning before I go to work.

Now it's time for the toppings.  You can go crazy and use whatever your little heart desires.  Our pizzas are always insane, giant monstrosities.  Every time we make one we are like "Next time we're going to cool it on the toppings a little."  And you know what, we never do.  This time, we went with fresh mozzarella cheese (in the very back), bell peppers, tomatoes, and jalapenos.  We cooked up some ground breakfast sausage too to throw on there.  So good.  For sauce, I just take canned tomato sauce and mix in some fresh chopped garlic, a little bit of garlic powder, oregano, and Italian seasoning.  

Preheat the oven to 475*, and make sure your rack is in the bottom half of the oven.  Roll out your pizza dough and put it on a pizza pan (or cookie sheet, or pizza stone, whatever you have).  I fold over the edges a big to make a crust, but that's mostly because my pan is a little too small for the amount of dough this recipe makes.  A big pizza pan is on my "to get" list. Spread the sauce on the dough.  When I'm using fresh mozzarella slices I like to put the cheese underneath the toppings.  I don't know why that is, but I just like it better that way.  If I'm using grated mozzarella I put the cheese on top of the toppings.  I'm weird, I know.  Anyway, I digress.  Add the rest of your toppings (or in my case, pile the rest of your toppings on top of the pizza).  

Bake for 12-15 minutes, until the crust is golden brown.  My oven is kind of weird and lame (a new oven is also on my list of wants, but I don't think that's happening anytime soon) so my crust really isn't golden brown, but it still tastes good.  Let the pizza cool for a few minutes when you pull it out of the oven, slice and enjoy.  

Really, it's so easy to make your own dough.  And if you make a lot at one time you can freeze the extras and if you remember to pull it out of the freezer in the morning you can have delicious homemade pizza that night in less time than it would take you to order a delivery.  To me, the key to this is adding seasoning to the dough.  It really pushes it over the top.