Now the dough was relatively easy, having only 5 ingredients (bread flour, salt, water, olive oil and yeast), but I found I had to alter her recipe slightly. Although it is said the baking is mostly precise, I've found that sometimes there can be variations, especially in how others measure flour. Now I remember back from Home Economics class in high school that the instructor stressed that when measuring flour, that you just don't scoop or pack the flour into the measuring cup, but rather measure the flour by spooning it into the measuring cup and leveling it off. Now that's the way I normally work. With that said, I went about following the recipe and ended up with what seemed to be a non-workable dough. It was still quite moist and very sticky and was hard to work with. Here it is in the bowl still being mixed.
Again knowing that Annie has not steered me wrong, I trusted her, and went about the process, placed it in an oiled bowl, covered with with saran wrap and let it rise for about two hours. It all seemed well.
As you can see, I also made another batch of the dough. For that batch, I just scooped the flour out using the measuring cup, and still felt it needed more than the recipe called for (fairly certain I must have added an extra half cup to the recipe. Once risen, that one looked a bit differently.
Now while the dough was rising, I decided to make Peach Sangria to accompany my pizza, after a friend on Facebook asked if someone could figure out how to make it. Again, I searched the internet for suggested recipes for said sangria. Some of them called for a white table wine and to use Lemonade concentrate, which I found a bit odd. I wasn't having that. What I ended up doing was using a white wine, peach schnapps, lemon lime soda, and a peach-pinapple puree I made. Oh, and I sliced up some fresh peaches to put in it, of course! I've been told that It was "on point!" so I must have done something right!
Okay, now back to star of the show. After the dough had risen, I split it up into eight portions per batch of down. The first batch was a bit messy, but I made it work. By proportioning it out prior to being at the grilling station, I definitely saved myself a headache.
Looking good! So, at this point, it was time to grill. I had already gathered my toppings, you know whatever you like to eat on a pizza, and was ready to go. What I had done was hand stretched the dough right before putting it on the grill, but I'm sure if you wanted to be more precise, you would always use a rolling pin to roll it out.
I liked doing it this way because I liked the rustic shape. Now what I had found to do was just to brown one side of the dough at first, so I did that for all the dough-balls first and set them to the side. Then I put the toppings on the cooked side and finish up the other side of the dough. It was fantastic.
Cheese and Pepperoni Pizzas
BBQ Chicken Pizza with peppers and onions!!!!!!
They were too big for my plates!
Can't forget a shot of the Peach Sangria (we already hit that up before I remembered to take a picture... Whoops!
What a tasty meal and a great way to spend time with my family and friends!
Grilled Pizza
Now this recipe was taken from Annie-Eats and adapted to work with what worked for me. Now I hadn't noticed that her recipe also had a weight measurement until right now, so maybe had I tried that, I would have had a more consistent recipe. That's okay, maybe next time!
Pizza Crust
½ cup warm water (about 110°)
1 envelope (2 ¼ tsp.) instant yeast
1 ¼ cups water, at room temperature
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
4 cups (22 oz.) bread flour, plus more for dusting
1 ½ tsp. salt
olive oil or non-stick cooking spray for greasing the bowl
Directions:
Measure the warm water into a 2-cup liquid measuring cup. Sprinkle in the yeast and let stand until the yeast dissolves and swells, about 5 minutes. Add the room temperature water and oil and stir to combine. I tried to make sure I stirred it up really well, especially right before I poured it into the dry ingredients.
Place the flour and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Briefly combine the dry ingredients at low speed. Slowly add the liquid ingredients and continue to mix at low speed until a cohesive mass forms. Stop the mixer and replace the paddle with the dough hook. Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Form the dough into a ball, put it in a deep oiled bowl, and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise until doubled in size, about 1 ½ to 2 hours. Press the dough to deflate it.
Now this recipe can be used to bake regular pizzas in the house too, so don't reserve it just for grilling.
At this point, I portioned the dough in to eight dough balls, and coated them with flour, covered them, and set them aside until I was ready to grill (be careful not to let them sit for more than 30 minutes).
Preheat your grill to a medium-high heat. Once heated, oil the grates. I wadded up paper towels and put them into olive oil and spread it over the grates. I suggest using tongs when doing this, or you will get burned (ouch).
When ready to use, either hand stretch the dough into whatever shape you can get them into, being careful not to stretch a hole into the middle or drop it on the ground. The dough is sneaky and ultimately would rather be on the ground that in your hands. I had to use both hands and arms to prevent any casualties. Now you can roll them out with a rolling pin if you would like, but I felt like hand stretching was more fun.
As you stretch the dough, place it on the already heated grill, and move on to the next dough-ball. You will see the dough start to bubble a bit, so use tongs or a turner to move them slightly to make sure it cooks evenly. The dough should release fairly easily from the grill making it easy to move.
When you get some good grill marks on the bottom, move the dough from the heat. The other side will get cooked once the toppings are on.
Now the most important part, the toppings!!
Sauces
You can use any of the following to your liking: Marinara, BBQ sauce, buffalo sauce, Basil Pesto, alfredo sauce, garlic butter sauce. The options are endless.
Toppings
Again, use any of the following to your liking: Cheese (mozzarella, cheddar, parmesan, blue cheese, feta, etc.), vegetables (mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers, onions, olives, etc), Meats, if you are into that (pepperoni, shredded chicken or pork, ham, sausage, bacon, etc).
So many options, so many flavors, so much fun.
Peach Sangria
1 bottle (750 ml) white wine of your choice
3/4 cup peach schnapps
2 cups frozen peaches (approximately)
1 cup pineapple juice (approximately)
8 ouces lemon lime soda (approximately)
2 fresh peaches, pitted, peeled and sliced
Now this is fairly easy. I opened the bottle of wine and put it into a two quart pitcher. Now, I used moscato wine, from Cupcake Vineyards to be exact. I like sweet, less grape-y wines, so I highly suggest using moscato wine for this, but it is all a matter of taste. I then added the peach schnapps. Now keep in mind that I eyeballed the measurement of the schnapps, so it is all a matter of taste.
I used the frozen peaches and pineapple juice the make a peach puree. I put the peaches and juice into the blender and liquified it. Once in a liquid state, put right into the pitcher with the wine mixture. Add the lemon lime soda and stir to combine. Now it's going to be a bit frothy, but don't worry. It will settle down.
Add the sliced peaches and give it a final stir and pop it into the refrigerator for at least 2 hours, to give the fruit time to flavor the sangria and the wine and schnapps time to do it's magic on the fruit. Serve chilled and enjoy!
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