Our Edible Table: Long Winter

After spending the winter focusing on work, family, slowly redoing our kitchen (and shovelling snow), we are ready to start blogging again.

Time to get the grills fired up, fresh herbs, fruits and veg into the kitchen and on to our table. This is going to be new journey - more cooking from Karin and more adventurous cooking from Jamie.

The pictures of these grilled pizzas would be better if I had taken my time instead of quickly taking pictures so that I could eat them!

Making these pizzas couldn't be easier, and the "WOW" factor when you do it in front of people is ego-boosting.

We bought pre-made dough, in bags, from our local store. I floured my hands, so the dough wouldn't stick so much, took it out and formed it into a ball. Then I just slowly turned it, letting the weight of it pull the dough thinner and thinner. When it was at a thinness that I liked, I put it on a baking sheet and put some olive oil on it. Drizzled it on and rubbed it all over. Then I flipped the dough over on the sheet and was ready to rock.

I preheated the grill (gas). I imagine that hardwood charcoal would impart greater flavor, but since these are on the grill for such a short amount of time, and my time right now is tight, so I used the gas grill. I'm looking forward to doing this with the hardwoods. I digress. I got the grill hot, and then flipped the dough (oil side down) on to the grill, on a medium heat, and closed the lid. Checked on it a couple of times to make sure there were no steam bubbles in the dough.

Once they had been on a bit, and the sides of the dough looked like they were drying out, I flipped it over. Right there is "Wow" factor #1. The dough just looks so cool ! The grill marks, the irregular shape, the crispy and soft areas of the dough...

Once flipped, time is of the essence. Too many times have I had ideas of pizzas to create, only to get writers block when confronted with two blank canvases (mixing metaphors, I know). Have a plan and then stick to it.

And really, that was it. One pizza got sauce, one didn't. One got olives, one didn't. One got fresh rosemary, one didn't. Etc etc. Top went down, and then we waited. And not too long. We like our veggies fresh, the mozzerella not too melted.

Once we felt they were ready, they came off, rested on a board, and then cut into slices. They sat on our side table long enough to get photographed (hastily) and then they were devoured.

We've made these several times in the past month, and besides being easy, tasty and impressive to look at, they are also really rather cheap. A bag of dough is 90 cents. You already have olive oil in your pantry. We grow our own herbs, so I just pick some fresh rosemary and do a quick rough chop. A handful of country olives, rough chopped, thrown on top, is a marginal cost. The only thing that will cost anything of note is the fresh mozzerella.

Hungry now. Must go plan next pizza.

Sorry for the quality of the pictures.