grilled pizza

Picture from Cave Cibum, who has yummy ideas for topping grilled pizzas.

Ever since I saw someone make pizza on a grill on the Today Show, I have been dieing to try it. With the weather in VA this spring being unpredictable at best, I have not found a good time to experiment with the idea. So today I decided that neither rain nor sleet nor snow were going to keep this California girl from grilling. ps, It was raining.

Prep:
- I bought fresh pizza dough (white and wheat) from TJ's (only 99 cents each!), fresh mozzarella, fresh basil and tomato sauce. I planned on making a Margaretta pizza.
- At home I microwaved some olive oil with garlic, to infuse the flavors.
- Preheat the grill to high heat.
- Cut the cheese and basil so it will be on hand when ready to top.
- Stretch out the pizza dough (note: it doesn't have to be a round shape). We divided each pizza dough in half for easy handling.

Grilling:
- Brush one side of the dough with the garlic olive oil; lay that side down on the grill. Shut the lid and turn the heat down to medium.
- Then play the guessing game. With the lid down we let it grill until there were light brown grill marks and the dough on that side looked cooked. I probably checked it every minute or so. In hind sight I would let it grill a little longer next time, but I was so afraid of burning it. Which it never even came close to doing. We deemed it "done" after a few minutes of cooking.
- Next brush the top uncooked side with garlic oil and flip it over.
- Quickly top it with the tomato sauce and fresh mozzarella and put the lid back down.
- We played the same guessing game with the time. If you cook it on the upper shelf after flipping, it may take a little longer to bake. After checking it every couple of minutes, it looked good to go.
- Take it off (we sprinkled the basil here) and enjoy.

It was yummy. The wheat crust was a more dense dough and next time I will probablly not use it. By the time we got the last pizzas off (cooked two at a time) the first pizzas were cool and not as tasty. Next time we will dig in as they come off the grill. It was totally fun to make these and I sure as we practice throughout the summer it will become a no-stress fun BBQ treat.

I wanted to photo document this for you, but I was so nervous about it turning out badly, I forgot to take pictures. But never fear. I will for sure be making grilled pizza again. Until then, here is what was left when I remembered I forgot to take pictures.