perfect flip- no stickage and beautiful grill marks

Usually we grill pizza for a crowd but last week Mo VBar and I got to enjoy our two creations all to ourselves.  We’ve been trying to get alot of these JP Crow dinners in while we can because by the end of the month Mo will be moving to NYC to start a new crow outpost there.

We put on some tunes from brooklynradio.net, decided on our toppings and followed our standby pizza grilling technique outlined in a previous post.  Since we all have similar tastebuds it didn’t take us long to come to a decision:

Pizza #1: garlic oil, mozz, sliced tomatoes, and artichokes topped with a sprinkling of pecorino romano and freshly chopped basil.

Pizza #2: pesto, diced chicken sausage, caramelized onions, diced red pepper and a combination of mozz and goat cheese.  This was a play off a panini that the three of us enjoyed a couple months earlier that proved to be simple and satisfying.  We washed it all down with some Sauvingnon Blanc from one of my favorite wine producers, Root:1.

We were too busy that night to take any pictures of the finished product but here is a grilled pizza i made a couple days later with the leftover half a dough.  For toppings i used fire roasted tomatoes, sliced mushrooms, diced kalamata olives, fresh mozz, pecorino romano and chopped basil.

We’re all anxious to try new and excited pizza toppings and techniques so feel free to share some interesting combos with us!

Feeling nostalgic for summer yet?  I know I am.  Tonight I made a winterized version of one of my favorite summer staples: a Caprese Salad.  Used delicious roasted beets instead of tomatoes and it was so fresh yummy and satisfying it made me forget the cold for a moment or two.

Just wrap up the whole beets (skins on) with greens and bottoms removed in a tinfoil pouch with some olive oil, salt and pepper and roast at 375 for about an hour.  Let them cool, and then peel and slice.  Add fresh basil and sliced fresh mozzarella.  Dress with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, s&p.  Enjoy!