Pizza on the Grill - It's What's for Dinner!

Once the Cook's Illustrated Guide to Grilling and Barbecue arrived last week - only about five weeks after I placed my order directly with the company, mind you; let this be a lesson that amazon.com can be a beautiful thing - the first recipe that really caught Michael's and my eye was that of grilled pizza. We had first attempted grilled pizza the night before the book arrived, a spur of the moment decision using pre-made dough from Trader Joe's (something I had never, ever done before). But sliding the pizzas off of the peel and onto the grill proved a definite challenge, and the pizzas were a bit soppy.

According to Cook's Illustrated, you can fix both of these problems by grilling one side of the dough before topping the pizzas. This allows you to flip the pizzas onto the grill using your hands rather than the ineffective peel, and you simply put your toppings on the grilled side before placing the pizzas back over the coals to grill the underside of the dough (this time homemade)and heat up the toppings.

Ahhh, heating up the toppings! Since there were six adults at dinner, I had the brilliant idea that we should grill one side of all the pizzas first, then we could each load up some tomatoes, cheese, and such and toss (or rather, gently place) them back on the grill and be done with it. The catch? Since by this time the pizza rounds were already cold from having been off the heat so long, we had a hard time heating the toppings thoroughly. When topped immediately after coming off the flame, the toppings have the advantage of warm bread to start the cooking before they even hit the grill. But we're learning! This is why you experiment; next time, it will be better.

But even now, these pizzas were pretty darn good. Grilled pizza should be a summer staple.