Grilled Whole Wheat Pizza

 
Grilled pizza: one of those things I'd only read about in magazines. It was intriguing, but I was scared. You couldn't possibly grill pizza without making a huge mess, could you? 


But the thought of a hot homemade pizza with a nice crisp crust fresh off the grill sounded so good. Mess or no mess, I thought, we had to give this a try. We just had one little issue: I don't grill. I knew I had to get the husband on board. 


He thought it all sounded like nice idea, but the process tripped him up. "So we'll heat up the stone while we get the toppings ready and then grill it on there, right?" 


"No," I told him. "Everything I've read says you just put the dough right on the grill. We'll spray the grill, and then throw on the dough."


"Spray the grill?" He gestured with his hands that there was bound to be an explosion. "This stuff is flammable," he said, picking up a nearby bottle of nonstick cooking spray.


"We'll stand back," I said, and somehow he was sold.


I made a whole wheat pizza dough from Eating Well that was developed for grilled pizzas and cut up whatever I could find in the fridge: a leftover turkey burger, turkey pepperoni, a red onion, some sliced mushrooms, mozzarella and red sauce. That was it. That's where my work ended.


This is the point, the husband would like me to tell you, where he took over. I guess tonight's post should actually be titled "Grilled Whole Wheat Pizza From the Husband." 


The husband fired up the grill and heated it to medium. Once the grill was ready, the husband put the prepared pizza dough right on the grill - the grill we had carefully sprayed with nonstick cooking spray (isn't grill spray available? I should buy him some, huh?). 


I had horrible visions of the dough being sucked into the grill slats, sending me down the road to pick up some takeaway. But the dough sat perfectly on top of the grill. It bubbled a little, but there was no mess!


After about two to three minutes, the bottom of the dough started to brown lightly and firm up. The husband used tongs to flip the dough, and then he put on all of our toppings.

Once the toppings were on, the husband closed up the grill and let everything cook for a couple more minutes. We peeked after about two minutes to make sure it wasn't burning. Another couple of minutes we peeked again. About five minutes after putting the toppings on, our cheese was melted and dinner was ready - and we didn't have a huge mess to clean up on the grill!