October is National Pizza Month - Grilled Brick Oven Pizza

Okay, so it's not actually "grilled," but it is pizza and it was baked on a grill, so I'm going to call it that. This one comes from the BBQ Pit Boys and you're going to need a baking stone to be able to do. If you don't have one handy then you can try out Rob Barrett's cooking sheet method.

Ingredients
-Pizza dough (I used the leftover half from the pan pizza recipe)
-1/4 cup of cornmeal
-1/2 cup of pizza sauce
-1 1/2 cup of mozarrella cheese
-125 mL of olive oil
-Your favorite toppings


Directions
Step 1 - Lay down, knead, and shape your dough and throw a little bit of corn meal down on your surface. This allows your pizza to be able to slide on to the grill and it adds a bit of texture to the crust.



Step 2 - Add a layer of sauce to the dough.


Step 3 - Add cheese.


Step 4 - Add your favorite toppings (and a little more cheese).


Step 5 - Coat the crust with a very thin layer of olive oil.


Step 6 - The second you get your grill going you need to put your stone on it. Once it's heated up a bit slide your pizza on the stone. Bake until golden and enjoy.





The Verdict
The pizza ended up tasting wonderful but it took forever to make. Lighting the coals, waiting for the grill to heat up, and then the actual time it took for the pizza to finish was just an awful lot of effort. I'm not saying that it wasn't worth it, but maybe it'd be best to save this one for a Saturday afternoon when you don't have a lot going on.

October is National Pizza Month - Pan Pizza

Since I didn't have the best of luck with store-bought dough for the last two recipes I decided to make my own this time around following the steps from Pizza Therapy. As far as the pizza itself goes, I'm using Chef Sanjay Thumma's recipe for pan pizza. If you're a fan of Indian cuisine you should definitely check out some of his other recipes on his YouTube account.

Ingredients
-375 mL of warm water
-7 grams of yeast (1 packet's worth)
-2 teaspoons of sugar
-1 teaspoon of salt
-5 cups of flour
-250 mL of olive oil
-1/2 cup of pizza sauce
-1 cup of shredded mozzarella
-Your favorite toppings



Directions
Step 1 - In a small bowl mix together your yeast, 1 tablespoon of sugar, and 1 tablespoon of salt.


Step 2 - Add 250 mL of warm (but not hot) water to the mixture and let it sit for around fifteen minutes or until the yeast begins to activate and bubble.


Step 3 - In a separate bowl measure and pour in four cups of flour. Add in 125 mL of olive oil, 125 mL of warm water, and one tablespoon of sugar.




Step 4 - Add your yeast mixture to your flour mixture and stir with a fork until it becomes too thick to continue mixing by hand.


Step 5 - Put around half a cup of flour down on your counter, throw your mixture in there, and knead together until it becomes uniform and solid.



Step 6 - Fold the dough up into a ball, lightly coat it olive oil, place it in a Ziploc bag, and leave it in the refrigerator overnight. Make sure to leave a small opening in the bag for the gas that the yeast creates to escape.



Step 7 - By the next day the dough should have at least doubled in size. Punch the air out of the dough and then leave it out to rise a bit more on the counter. You'll only need half of it for this recipe so cut it down the middle and save the rest for later (it should keep in the fridge for another two or three days).




Step 8 - Throw down a little bit of flour on the counter and knead your dough back in to a ball before putting it in a pan.



Step 9 - Add a layer of sauce to the dough.


Step 10 - Add your toppings.


Step 11 - Add cheese.


Step 12 - Coat the crust with a very thin layer of olive oil.


Step 13 - Place your pan on top of your stove while it's set to a slow flame/medium heat for five or six minutes.


Step 13 - With your oven at 425 degrees, remove your pizza from the pan and put it on a baking stone. If you don't have a baking stone and your pan is heat resistant you can place it in the stove. Bake until golden and enjoy.




The Verdict
Homemade crust is definitely the way to go and so far this is my favorite out of the recipes I've tried out. After finishing the pizza I noticed that the box of the baking stone said not to use flour on it (because it burns) and to use corn meal instead, so next time I'll try that out and see how it works.

Next up, pizza on the grill!

October is National Pizza Month - Stromboli

A stromboli isn't exactly a pizza but since it's made up of the exact same ingredients I would think, if nothing else, that they're closely related. Anyway, today's recipe is a mixture of two different recipes. I'm using the dough, layering, and braiding technique found in Chef Ann Martin's recipe, but I'm substituting in a layer of pizza sauce for ham like in Howdini's recipe.

Ingredients
-1 roll of frozen white bread (1 lb)
-1/2 cup of pizza/marinara sauce
-2 cups of mozzarella/pizza cheese
-1 cup of cheddar cheese
-Your favorite toppings


Directions
Step 1 - Grab your favorite cooking sheet, oil it up, and then place your roll of bread on it and oil it up as well.


Step 2 - Cover the bread with either plastic wrap or wax paper and let it sit out for eight or nine hours.


Step 3 - After the dough has expanded to around four or five times its original size, remove its wrapping.


Step 4 - Flatten the dough out into a large rectangle and make sure that it isn't too large to fit on your cooking tray/sheet/stone.


Step 5 - Add a layer of sauce to the dough. You'll want to leave a little bit of room on the edges for later.


Step 6 - Add one cup of mozzarella/pizza cheese.


Step 7 - Add a layer of toppings.


Step 8 - Add one cup of cheddar cheese.


Step 9 - Add an additional layer of toppings.


Step 10 - Add on a final layer of mozzarella/pizza cheese.


Step 11 - The last part of preparing this thing (which is optional) is to braid the dough. I'm not even going to try to explain how this works but if you watch this video you'll get an idea of how to do it.




Step 12 - Set your oven to 350 degrees and bake until golden.



The Verdict
I don't know why I didn't learn my lesson from the last time, but store-bought crust is obviously not the way to go. It gets the job done but it just doesn't have much flavor to it. As far as the actual stromboli itself goes, it was a lot of fun to make but the finished product was just so-so. I'm not a big fan crust to begin with so eating a pizza that was covered entirely in it wasn't exactly great.

Next up, pan pizza!