Grilled Pizza

You know we started out making grilled pizza with the regular kinds of things a ready made crust that hangs next to the pizza in the freezer section, a bottle of pizza sauce and the tried and true toppings of cheese, sausage and pepperoni.  From there we decided making our own crust would be fun and friends tell me it’s pretty easy.  When then came the low carb diet.  HAHHA!  It was then that I went searching for a whole wheat or whole grain crust.  My past experiences with making pizza crust is that they are all bland and never taste like one you get in a restaurant, so to be honest this search for a healthy crust left me stressed out until the day I found a particular one that seemed like a good idea.  You know of course it was after I made a few alterations.  So if you desire a rustic crust that has that wonderful smokey taste this crust is for you.  You need to make the dough at least the night before as it needs to rest in the fridge.

4 1/2 cups King Arthur Whole Wheat (whole grain)Flour
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon instant yeast
1/4 cup olive oil
1 3/4 cups water, ice cold
a few tablespoons chopped herbs (I use hands full of rosemary, thyme, oregano and basil — and fresh while I have them, in the winter use less and dried)

Blah blah blah the instructions say….  Tammy does this.  Put dry ingredients in the Kitchen aid with the dough hook, slowly ad liquids until dough forms (and if it looks dry then it is add more water, if it’s getting to wet STOP), now add your herbs.  Bring the dough out and briefly knead it to form what ever shape you are comfortable with, now cut that into 6 equal pieces.  This part is easier with a second person.  Take each piece and roll into a ball, coat with olive oil and place in bag (we have wrapped with plastic wrap and tossed into one big bag and we have put them in individual zip bags – makes no difference) once done put in fridge and wait of the OMG goodness that will come the next day.  We have kept this in the fridge for ~a week with no issue but we have yet to try freezing it. 

 Now it’s the next day and we want to make pizza on the grill.  Fire up that grill and get her blazing hot, we turn all 5 burners on high and kill the middle 3 when we put the dough out.  It is my experience that rolling your dough out on corn meal in a sided baking sheet works the best and keeps the mess down.  But by all means throw corn meal all over the place I don’t have to sweep it up.  😉  Put your pretty little crust on the grill and bake for 3-4 minutes (watch them because this will vary based on how hot the grill is and etc).  Bring them in and place them baked side up.  You are now ready for toppings.

Here is our assortment of toppings:

On this night we were opting for Sundried Tomato Pesto (in the pasta section usually top shelf) and homemade basil pesto as our sauce.  The tomato pesto is so rich and luxurious and honestly it just taste great on this crust as does the pesto.  Next is the cheese while we don’t buy the best we do find that BelGioioso Fresh Mozzarella (local warehouse club) is really good you just can’t buy a bag of shredded Kraft and expect it to be awesome!  One day we will attempt to make our own mozzarella but for now this doing the job.  We also were experimenting with Feta cheese as a topping and our taste test determined that the feta was better on the basil pesto.  We also had prosciutto, sun dried tomatoes (grape and roma) , grilled onions and garlic, chicken spinach and parm sausage links cut into thin slices and for traditional purposes regular roll sausage. 

Here we are ready for the grill:

Of course KLT always says I put to much stuff on it, I don’t care it makes us even for how he can never close his fajita or burrito.

Put the topped pizza out on the grill and cook till the other side of the crust is done and your cheese is melted. You will need to pay attention if your grill has hot spots and what not you don’t want to burn your crust.

Return your lovely pizza to a cutting board and slice it up however you see fit. I prefer a pizza peel and a pizza rocker but hey I am a crazy girl!

I know what you are thinking, DAMN Tammy that looks good what possibly could I do to make this better? Well serve you gourmet pizza with a bottle lovely red wine.  We usually go for Ecco Dommani Chianti but tonight it was an Oliver Shiraz.