Party Week: Pizza on the Grill

As Party Week comes to a close, let's wrap up with food.  Picking what food to serve at a party can be tricky, because you  have to take into account so many different factors.  For large groups, with diverse taste preferences, I like to serve versatile food that allows for some customization.  Pizza on the grill is a perfect meal for the summer get together.  It's easy to make.  It can accommodate any size group, and everyone gets to help. The first step is to prepare the dough.  I did this before the party, and brought the dough with me.  It still needed to do the second rise, which worked out great, because the dough was finished about the time everyone was hungry.  I always use the same Martha Stewart recipe from a cookbook I have.  I found a similar one on her website and you can find it here.

The only remotely difficult part of the process, is making sure the yeast blooms enough.  If you don't have a kitchen thermometer, this can be tricky.  The water is supposed to be heated to 110 degrees, which is pretty hot, but if you get the water too hot you could kill the yeast.  However, from my experiences (both with and without a thermometer), I'd err on the side of hotter water.  I've included a picture of how foamy the yeast mixture should be.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup warm water (110 degrees)
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 packet active dry yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tbsp. olive oil, plus more to coat bowl.

Instructions:

• Combine the sugar and water in a bowl.  Stir to dissolve the sugar, then add the yeast.  Mix with a fork until the yeast dissolves and the water is brown.  Let stand 5-10 minutes until the mixture is foamy.
• Add the flour and salt to the bowl of a food processor.  Pulse several times to mix.  Add the olive oil and yeast mixture to the bowl.  Pulse until the dough just comes together.
• Knead and allow to rise 1 hour. Punch down dough and fold onto itself. Allow to rise for an additional 30 minutes. 

After the dough is ready, it's time to grill it!  You're probably fairly skeptical at this point.  That's alright, so were all of my friends.  I'm pretty sure I know they thought this was going to turn into a colossal disaster, and that we'd end up ordering pizza instead of making it.  As luck would have it, I did know what I was doing and everyone's pizza turned out great!

Now go try your hand at your own pizza on the grill this weekend!

I hope everyone enjoyed Party Week as much as I did!

Happy Memorial Day All- Be Safe and Have Fun!