There’s a new sensation in my house

Grilled Pizza

I know, we came to this one a little late since grilled pizzas are showing up everywhere, but that’s okay.  While I will never be confused as being cutting edge, I do tend to make a mean dish once I finally hop on the culinary bandwagon.

And I have jumped on this bandwagon with both feet.

Grilled Pizza – The Beginning

To begin my initiation, I stopped by Whole Foods and picked up some of their regular pizza crust (regular as in note whole grain.)  My wife makes a mean pizza crust, but frankly both of us had had long weeks. Thus we made the not-terribly-difficult decision to pay the $3 and let the fine folks at Whole Foods take care of all our crust needs.  Plus,  Whole Foods pizza crust is pretty darn good.

When I got my crust home, I figured we’d want to have pizza with caramelized onions, so I got them started.  Then, I divided the pizza dough into four smaller balls, rolled them out flat, and let them rest.

But what to do about toppings?

Grilled Pizza and Laughing Cow Cheese

A long, long time ago the good folks at Laughing Cow cheese sent me a coupon for a free sample, which, of course, I accepted.  Because I am kind of a big dummy, I never actually used the darn thing, but that’s okay since my wife keeps a pretty steady supply in the house.  (Sorry for the anecdote, but for FTC purposes, I wanted to say something.  I mean I did receive free product, I just never really used it.  Silly FTC.)  Anway, she loves the stuff and puts it on toast, crackers, tomatoes, etc.  Edit: that never happened.  It was Alouette and Chavrie that sent me coupons.  They’re obviously much better for it. 🙂

I wasn’t even thinking about it at first.  As I was trying to figure out how to top my resting crusts, I settled on doing a balsamic/caramelized onion jam and goat cheese pizza.  The problem: no goat cheese!  But, as stated above, we did have Laughing Cow Swiss cheese. 

You know, sometimes it’s okay not to have all the ingredients you wanted…

Grilled Pizzas with Laughing Cow Cheese and Caramelized Onion Recipe

Grilling pizzas is a four step process: roll out the crusts, gather the toppings, grill the crusts, grill the pizza.  They’re not difficult steps, but you definitely want all your toppings ready or else you can easily burn your crusts.

You will need:

• 2 tablespoons of butter, cut into tablespoon sized chunks
• 2 onions
• 1 teaspoon pepper and salt
• 2 leaves fresh basil or 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 tablespoon balsamic
• 1 store bought pizza crust
• Flour to use as bench flour (about 1/4 cup)
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 8 sections Laughing Cow cheese
• 4 teaspoons dried basil
• Parmesan cheese

First, make the caramelized onions by following the directions in this recipe for caramelized onion gratin.  The onions, ideally, will need to cook for at least an hour.  Add the balsamic at the end and let it cook about 5 minutes.

After about 30 minutes of cooking the onions, cut your pizza crust into four equal balls.  Find a clean area and spread the flour on it.   Roll each ball into a round that is between 1/4 and 1/2 inch thick on that flour.  Let them rest until the onions are done.

Turn your gas grill to high or build a hot fire in your charcoal grill.  Close the lid and let it get heat for about 5 minutes.

Coat one side of each round in just enough olive oil to cover it (you may not need all 4 tablespoons.)  Place the pizza crusts on the grill and cook for 2 minutes and then flip.  Cook another 2 minutes.  Then flip again, this time orienting the pizza 90 degress towards the way it was orginially cooked and grill 1 more minute.  Flip a final time and cook for a minute.

Take the pizzas off the grill and spread 2 pieces of Laughing Cow cheese, 1 teaspoon of basil, a good tablespoon of caramelized onions, and some shredded Parmesan cheese on on each crust.  Put the pizzas back on the grill, close the lid, and cook until the Laughing Cow is warm and melty (about 4-5 minutes)

Let the pizza cool for a minute or so and enjoy!