Grilled Pizza and Sunshine

Do you ever wonder if you can make a good (or great) thing better? I usually don’t try to mess with something that’s already awesome. After all, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it…right? Right. Well, last week we decided to take something great (pizza) and make it better. That’s right, I said it. We made pizza better. How, you ask? By grilling it.

I’ve heard talk about grilled pizza many times, be it on a blog or on Food Network, but I never put much thought into it. Well, we were starved (no pun intended) for menu items last week, so we decided we’d try something different. And, it was a big plus that it’s something we could easily do on a weekday. The results were beyond our expectations, and grilled pizza is something that we’ll be doing more often in the future!

Grilled Pizza

{Print this Recipe}
Here’s what you’ll need:
Serves: 2
- prepared pizza dough, store bought or homemade will work just fine
- olive oil
- toppings of  your choice
(I know, this is an extensive ingredient list. But fear not, you can do it!)

Instructions:
Thanks to a tip from Annie of Annie’s Eats, we went about grilling our pizza the easiest way we knew how — individual sizes so our delicious masterpiece didn’t end up dog food on the patio floor. This worked out better anyway because we have different tastes when it comes to pizza. Anyway, I digress.

To prepare the dough for the grill, simply roll it out into individual-sized pies (6 to 8 inches is a good size) and oil them generously on both sides to prevent from sticking to the grates. You’ll want the grill to be on a pretty low heat, and you don’t want to put the dough directly over the heat otherwise it’ll blacken before your cheese has a chance to melt. To grill, toss the un-topped pizza dough onto the warm grill. Starting the grilling process without toppings allows the dough to cook through, and it will be easier to top and transfer to the grilling surface.

Once one side of the dough is nice and crisp with a few grill marks, take the dough off the grill and top away (putting all the toppings on the cooked side). Return the pizza to the grill to get nice and crisp on the bottom side and to allow the cheese to melt. The whole cooking process takes 15 to 20 minutes, depending on your grill and how much cheese/toppings are on your pie.

Grilled White Pizza with Spinach and Pine Nuts

I’ve had a lot of different types of pizza, but something about the grill marks, the crisp dough and the great grilled flavor makes this a whole new way to eat an American favorite. we had one pretty traditional pizza — sauce, cheese, pepperoni, etc. — and one lighter, white pizza. We decided that keeping the flavors simple and light is the key to this grilled variety because it allows you to really get the flavors of the grill rather than just overloading the dough with traditional pizza flavors. Plus, lighter = summery.

We’ll definitely be grilling pizza again (and again), trying new varieties and seeing what we can come up with. This is a great summer twist on a classic favorite. So, I’d like to know…have you grilled pizza? And if so, what do you like to put on it?

P.S. Photographing pizza is damn near impossible.

Sunshine

On another totally unrelated note, I have an exciting announcement! My blogging buddy, Jenny from Sweet and Saucy, has recently awarded me the Sunshine Award! Jenny was one of the first food bloggers and started following, and she has been a great inspiration over the last year. Thanks for the award, Jenny, and thanks for being an awesome foodie and inspiring me to be the same!

In the spirit of receiving this lovely award, here is a list of the blogs I’d like to recognize for being great friends, great inspiration, and most of all great bloggers:

Anecdotes and Apple Cores for being the best commenter around
Lemons and Anchovies for being a FoodBuzz Top 9 queen
Very Culinary for loving dessert as much as me :)
Life’s Ambrosia for providing me with some of the most mouthwatering recipes around
Our Life in Food because being “a girl, a guy and what we eat” is totally awesome
Erin’s Food Files for being a fellow self-proclaimed foodie
Buttered Up for rockin the blogosphere in just a few short months
Keep Your Diet Real for making healthy food a little less scary
Natalie’s Killer Cuisine for having the best darn pictures around