Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Grilled B.L.T. Pizza on Wheat Crust

I could have lived the rest of my life without a grill....but I'm really glad I chose not to!

I could now live the rest of my life on grilled pizza!

I was never one for standing outside in the heat over top of more heat crossing your fingers that the food turned out right! Alex can tell you I was not happy to be purchasing a Weber gas grill when we moved into our first home! I thought it would seriously be a huge waste of money! Little did I know we would use that grill probably more so than the stove/oven in our kitchen. Grilling in our home started off very basic, we would grill meats and that was about it, but boy did we grill...all year round!

As we were planning our meals one weekend we came across grilled pizza. I thought this would most likely turn out into a huge ball of burnt dough on the grill, but I was up for the adventure and so was Alex! To our surprise we didn't burn the pizza and it was by far the best pizza we both have ever had! 


Some variations of grilled pizza that we have tried are:


Chicken or Pancetta, Goat Cheese and Shallots

BBQ Chicken

Shrimp, Chorizo and Escarole

Caprese

You can really put anything you like on pizza...just a little sauce of your liking, cheese and whatever toppings make you happy! 



This week we decided to do a our own play on  California Pizza Kitchen's BLT Pizza
 
Grilled B.L.T. Pizza on Wheat Crust

Ingredients
  • Trader Joe's Wheat Pizza Crust
  • Flour (enough to cover a surface to roll dough on)
  • 4 T. Olive Oil
  • 1/4 cup Basil Pesto Mayonnaise (recipe will be posted later this week) 
  • Mozzarella (sliced, enough to layer on pizza crust)
  • 1/2 lb Bacon (cooked and crumbled) we used Trader Joe's apple smoked uncured bacon. 
  • 2 tomatoes (sliced)
  • Lettuce
 Directions
  • Cook bacon according to package instructions. While bacon is cooking set pizza crust out to warm up (makes it much easier to roll). We cook our bacon in the oven to cut down on the greasy mess that pan frying leaves behind. Drain, cool and crumble.
  • Roll pizza dough out on floured surface and form into desired shape. We keep a rectangle shape as it's easier  to move around with the pizza spatula on our grill. Once dough is rolled out  transfer to a cookie sheet and cover entire surface top and bottom with olive oil.
  • Grill crust over medium/high heat for about 1 1/2 minutes on each side. We keep the bottom side less crispy since we will put it back on the grill to heat through the ingredients 
  • Top pizza crust with a thin layer of basil pesto mayonnaise, cheese, bacon and return to grill until cheese is melted, making sure to not burn the crust. 
  • Top pizza with fresh tomatoes and  lettuce (we tossed our lettuce in a little bit of the basil pesto mayo for some added flavor. 
  • Feel free to add a little cracked black pepper as well
...and there you have it...grilled b.l.t.  pizza! 

I hope you enjoy this as much as we did! 


**I'll have more pics in my posts in the next few weeks. I am still a major work in progress and have learn the art of photo editing again!!! Bear with me as I continue towards a more visually pleasing site**



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