The Amateur Wife: Grilled ... Pizza?

We cooked something! It was good! It's a miracle! Let me elaborate.

On Saturday, Nurse A and I enjoyed a night in (like way in--I went to bed around 9 p.m. and we watched Creature), but just because we stay in doesn't mean we want to sacrifice our intense need to eat delicious food at all times. So we decided to cook.

But what? We had a few criteria. First, it had to be easy. My mom swears by how easy it is to make pizza from scratch and moms are always, always right. Second, it had to be inexpensive, because we're a bit strapped for cash. And third--well there was no third, but it is National Pizza Month and that should have some sort of influence, right?

We had been wanting to make grilled pizza since Andrew's co-worker whipped it up for us this summer, so we Googled a recipe and followed this Martha Stewart Basic Grilled Pizza Dough recipe exactly. It worked out swimmingly and we've actually got another batch rising right now so we can make pizzas again tomorrow. This is a delicious twist on baked pizza and it has a very distinct grilled flavor. It's simple and cheap too.

It all started with a foamy mixture of yeast, warm water and sugar.

Next the recipe called for oil, salt and all-purpose flour, and just like it says, it will seem a little dry. Knead it and form into a ball.

Look at that glorious dough ball! Put it in a slightly oiled bowl, brush with olive oil, cover it and leave it in a non-drafty place for about 45 minutes (we put ours in the downstairs shower). Let rise.

Probably the best part of this recipe is that you get to punch the dough down. Punch we did. And then, let it rise in the non-drafty place for another 30 minutes. We went on a walk and left ours to rise for more than an hour, but it was fine. Here is our final dough mass after kneading, punching and two rising sessions:

We then refrigerated it until we were ready to use it later that night. (You can also freeze it.) When you're ready to cook with it, grill it first, about one minute on each side. If you do it perfectly, it should have even grill marks, unlike ours. But you get the picture.

Then put toppings on. We chose red sauce, shredded mozzarella, thinly sliced tomatoes, basil and goat cheese. On our second one (randomly shaped like a triangle, courtesy of Nurse A) we also added mushrooms to the mix.

Back on the grill it goes. Using tongs, rotate it clockwise about every 45-60 seconds, until it's done. (We switched to another recipe in a cookbook at this point, but it's pretty easy to tell when the pizza is done. Just rotate the pizza with the tongs so it doesn't burn, but make sure it isn't doughy when you take it off. It takes about six to eight minutes.) We went ahead and put our triangle pizza on too.

Please ignore the smudge on my lens--I didn't realize until after. Or is it a ghost?

Sawyer was not happy with the whole grilling outside situation.

The finished product was so good. It had that smoky, grilled flavor, and the crust was really light and well-done on both pizzas, even though the triangle one had thicker crust. And, it's easy enough to make on a week night too. Just remember to put the dough together the night before or on your lunch break.