His and Her Pizza on the Grill

We have a long history of preparing pizza outdoors on the grill. This could possibly be related to Sarah J’s father’s obsession with pizza, a meal he would happily consume for breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week. You have to expand your pizza prep repertoire in order to eat so much pizza! Equally pertinent to this post is my quest to concoct a healthy pizza dough - hearty enough to support the massive amount of meat lovers man-pizza toppings favored by Andy the pizza connoisseur, yet pliable enough to satisfy the stretchy, glutinous demands of Andy the consummate dough crafter. I figure we can do better much than those premade dough offerings in the grocery deli or bakery case.

The June issue of Gourmet magazine includes a recipe for Pizza Rounds. I decided to go out on a limb and use the recipe as the foundation of our pizza on the grill while enjoying a respite in the Adirondack Mountains. But not exactly. I replaced the white flour completely with white whole wheat flour. I added a second round of rising, punching down the dough after the first rise to allow for additional lightening of the whole wheat dough and to avoid critical comments from the pie maker about the inferior qualities of whole wheat flour. Except I goofed and added half the amount of yeast called for in the Gourmet recipe – so perhaps the second rising would have been unnecessary.

All I know is the result was up there with the best pizza on the grill we have ever experienced! The crust was crispy, crackery, tasty. Held up well with lots of toppings! Makes me wonder whether we want to add that second package of yeast after all!!

About the His and Her aspect of this round of our continuous pizza improvement … we each added sliced tomatoes, freshly grated parmesan, sliced local mozzarella, kalamata olives and fresh basil and oregano from our garden atop our perfect crust. The His and Hers part came when I continued to layer my pizza with spinach (from our garden), caramelized onion, sliced mushrooms and local feta cheese. Meat man added pepperoni, salami, sausage, bacon and hot banana peppers.

Pizza Dough

1 c. (or more) warm water (105 – 115 degrees), divided

2 ¼ oz. packages active dry yeast

1 t. sugar

2 ½ c. white whole wheat flour (King Arthur)

½ c. rye flour

2 T. yellow cornmeal

1 ½ t. salt

2 T. EVOO

Place ¼ c. warm water in medium bowl. Sprinkle yeast and sugar over, blend. Let stand until puffed, about 6 minutes.

Mix both flours, cornmeal and salt in processor. Mix ¾ c. warm water and 2 T. EVOO into yeast. With machine running, gradually add yeast mixture to dry ingredients. Mix until dough just comes together, adding more water by teaspoonfuls if needed. Process 1 minute.

Transfer dough to lightly floured surface, knead 1 minute. Brush large bowl with oil, transfer dough to bowl, turning to coat with oil. Cover bowl with plastic, let dough rise in warm, draft-free area until doubled in volume, about 1 hour. Punch down and repeat for a second rising if desired.

Transfer dough to lightly floured surface; form into 2 balls. Roll/stretch each ball into desired shape.

Makes 2 pies.