Fresh Family Food: Grilled Pizza

This is a summer favorite at our house. It's a bit of work, but every time I make it I think that I could eat it every night of the summer. Our old Weber grill that was handed down to us finally gave out, so we purchased a new one and had this as the inaugural grilled meal. I was new to blogging at the time of the inaugural meal and didn't take a picture. And then another summer went by. So, I made sure to take the picture early in the season this year.

I love this recipe so much that I saved the entire issue of Bon Appetit from July 1997 , just so I can look at the pizza pictures again and again.

I make my own pizza dough but the original recipe does say that a tube of refrigerated dough can be substituted as well. I have made the crusts ahead of time to speed up the cook time on the day of the pizza. Whew, this recipe is a bit of work but so worth it.

This is my version...changed a bit from the original. I'm pretty loose on making the topping. I usually just drizzle a bit of balsamic vinegar over the finished pizza. And the cheese.....decreased a great deal from the original and usually sprinkle some goat cheese and parmesan. And usually that's it for the cheese. Sometimes I use tomatoes...sometimes not...

Toppings: Grilled Italian sausages (can be done ahead of time), roasted peppers (jarred, if preferred). We grilled on Saturday night last weekend, so I had Paul grill the sausages and roast the red pepper. That way on Sunday night these would come together quickly. It's a lot of work at crunch time otherwise. I have made the crusts ahead of time too....partially grilled. That has worked well when we have had people over for dinner since it's quite a bit of last minute tasks,

We found that it makes quite a bit of dressing, so I would recommend cutting it in half or using the remaining dressing as salad dressing. A few homegrown chives on the top are a good substitution for the green onions.

The basic recipe adapts well to highlight whatever is garden fresh. The herbs aren't ready yet, so I used dried basil in the crust. Not nearly as good as fresh herbs, but it was still delicious pizza.