Grilled Pizza

Yesterday for dinner we had grilled pizza. It was fabulous, and I made it in maybe 20 minutes flat. It was loved by the grown-ups and the kids in mi casa. My inspiration was from Martha Stewart Living this month. Today, though, I chanced upon something I might have to try this coming week from Smitten Kitchen: Grilled Eggplant and Olive Pizza. Hold the phone, Ethel, Deb's recipe looks fabulous, but not quite as easy as mine, particularly when you are rolling in the door with two hungry and cranky small people at 5:45pm who should have eaten about 5:30pm. Her picture looks better than mine, though, so I'm using hers. Plus she's more talented and generally more wonderful.

In any event, here's what I did to have dinner on plates by 6:10pm.

Oops. Forgot. I had prep the night before. I pulled two loaves of frozen bread dough (from the grocery store) out of the freezer and put it in a covered bowl in the fridge. That's it.

Next day at 5:45pm I walked in the door and pulled the bread dough out of the fridge. I threw it on the counter and punched it down. Actually, I did threw the bread on the counter to punch it down after I punched the glass in the glass bowl and screamed. Then I ran upstairs to change my clothes.

Once downstairs in my bad-lady attire, I flipped on the grill to high. I generously oiled two baking sheets (say 2-3T on each), and on one stretched out the dough slowly. Stretch, rest, stretch rest. There's so much gluten in the dough that you have to kinda work with the elastic and give it time to relax before you can stretch it again.

During rest cycles I cut zucchini and yellow squash--one of each--into 1/2 inch slices. I threw them on one baking sheet and tossed them in a bit more olive oil, then salt and pepper. If I'd had them I would have used green onions, too. I also threw about oh, 6 or 7 ounces of fontina cheese in the food processor to grate.

Once I had the pizza dough stretched out (about 12" x 18") I flipped it over so that both sides would be oiled. Then I let it rest again while I threw the veges on the grill to cook until lightly charred. They came off the grill and were set aside after I squeezed two halves of a lemon over them. As soon as they came off the dough got flopped on the hot grates. Top down, then, after three or four minutes I flipped it over, threw the cheese on top, then closed the grill and let it cook another three or four minutes. Off the cheesy pizza came.

Once inside I tossed on about 2 ounces of crumbled feta, about a half pound of cleaned pre-packaged, seemingly E. coli-free baby spinach, and topped it all with the whole grilled vegetables. The veges wilted the spinach and the whole thing was a gorgeous meat-free meal in one. There was plenty left over for lunch today.

Pesto, basil, rosemary--any of these would have been welcome additions to a straightforward and easy after-work meal.