what's cooking wednesday - grilled pizza

I have been meaning to try grilled pizza for quite some time, but just haven't gotten around to it. I finally found some free time and whipped up a batch of dough. This is going to be more of a how to than an actual recipe so feel free to use your favourite pizza dough recipe or buy some dough from the grocery store.



Preheat your grill until it's nice and hot. While you're waiting for that you can get everything else ready. Trust me on this, it's best to have everything ready to go because once things gets going it goes quick and you can very easily end up with a burnt pizza before you know it.

Roll your dough out. Don't worry too much about making it a perfect circle. Rustic is good in this situation. I ended up making four individual pizzas which was easier to handle and I could get the kid's pizzas cooked and set aside to cool for a bit while I got ours ready.

Grate your cheese and get all your toppings ready. Pizza doesn't take very long to cook on the grill, so if you don't like your veggies with a bit of crunch in them I suggest giving them a quick saute. Grilled vegetables would actually be excellent on this. We went with ham, onion and mushroom on ours this time around.

So your grill is preheated..... now what. Turn it down to medium-ish heat. Bring your rolled out dough out the grilled, I transferred it on to a cookie sheet and place it on the grill. Keep a close eye on it because it only takes a few minutes to cook. You want the bottom to be crispy with some browning. When you get it to the desired done-ness pull it off the grill and put it back on the cookie sheet grilled side up. Like I said this will go quicker than you think, just a few minutes.

Dress the cooked side of the pizza with your tomato sauce, cheese and toppings and it put it back on the grill to cook the other side and melt the cheese. This side will take a bit longer because you've turned the heat down, but keep an eye on the crust so it doesn't get too brown. You can always move it to one side and turn the burner off on that side to keep cooking the pizza via indirect heat.

Like I said once you get going it all happens pretty quick so make sure you've got all your toppings ready to go. It also helps if you know your bbq, where the hot spots are and such because the crust can burn quickly if you aren't paying attention.

The kids loved this pizza and so did Mike and I. It comes out with a much thinner and crispier crust. Almost like a cracker bread. It's a nice change from regular pizza crust which can sometimes be a little doughy for me. It's also a great way to have pizza in the summer without turning the oven on. I love homemade pizza because it lets you have fun with the toppings, be as creative as you'd like. I will certainly be grilling pizza again and again.




What is What's Cooking Wednesday and how can I play?

What's cooking Wednesday was born out of a desire to get out of that what's for dinner rut. Playing is easy, on Wednesday post a recipe that has been tried and tested by you and then pop over here and add your name to the Mr. Linky. When entering your name also add the name of the recipe in brackets and make sure you link to your What's Cooking Wednesday post and not just your blog's front page.

*All front page links will be deleted!*
*Posts that aren't linked back will be deleted*
*Posts that don't include some sort of a recipe will be deleted*

Don't make me be a jerk. And don't forget to link back here, the home of What's Cooking Wednesday.

So for example I would write Shan (Speedy Chicken Stir Fry) in the name section. For the URL section I would post this: http://shanrev.blogspot.com/2007/10/whats-cooking-wednesday-speedy-chicken.html

I'll let you in on a little secret, my WCW recipes are almost never made on a Wednesday. So feel free to cook and photograph whenever you have time and join us posting on Wednesday