Nuthin' Fancy

Blogging is amazing. It's interesting to see how my blog has taken on its own personality and has done much more than just talk about food and wine. Over the past two months, I have been able to share ideas with people across the United States, Europe and even in Dubai. I have received some great feedback via email, Facebook and through posted comments. What makes me happiest is enhancing even just one person's mealtime in some way. It's wonderful to hear things like, "Thank you for that recipe. I tried it last night and it was delicious!" or even other comments such as, "After reading your review on that restaurant, my friends and I had to go."

Now, I would like to share with you a very exciting new post feature. What's Cookin' will have a guest post by Nuthin' Fancy from the kitchen of my brother-in-law, Jeremy. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

Nuthin’ Fancy

Grilled Pizza

OK, the first installment of Nuthin’ Fancy was supposed to be a piece on Barbequed Pulled Pork Sammiches. However I got inspired by a bag of charcoal today and opted to test my waters on grilling a pizza, and post dinner, thought I should write it down. This was a simple put-together with mostly premade ingredients, here’s how it went down.

First of all making homemade pizza dough from scratch is a pain in the butt, I only do it on special occasions and even then try to talk my way out of it, although it can’t be beat even by your favorite local pizzeria. Typically it’s hard to stretch out into a square pan.

So, don’t be afraid to use a Bobali crust, or your favorite premaid crust.

I made 3 pizzas, one Tomato-Pesto, with onion and light mozzarella, one with sausage and onion, and one with pepperoni. Now since I am in the experiment stage I only cook what I’ll eat, because I know I can muscle through my mistakes and have seen the faces of those who couldn’t.

Prior to making anything I went out and lit up the grill, even for this instance I left the coals in a larger size pile in the center of the grill.

So I spread out some Pesto and laid down the tomato, covered it in light onions and a light layer of mozzarella, and set it aside. I also made the sausage and onion and set it aside, this had some leftover sweet and spicy sausages I had from a day or two before. Both of these were seasoned with salt and pepper, garlic powder and Oregano.

At this time I needed to check my coals and they were coming up just fine so I was thinking, “How can I crisp up the bottom of the crust without burning it into failure?" The answer was simple, I like to melt some mozzarella before putting sauce on as this makes the crust a little chewy and tastier. So the trick was to go out with cheesed up crust and while the coals were still in the middle, lay it down. At this time it is important to do two things, one, keep the lid on so you can melt the cheese, and two, keep the crust moving so it doesn’t burn. Not to worry, folks, just keep the crust from burning. Once things look good go ahead and put your toppings on it. After the cheese is melted I put down some sauce, then covered thoroughly with pepperoni. I am not a big pepperoni fan but I found if you put enough sauce on and the pepperoni’s right into the sauce it cuts down on the heartburn. Now the coals should be either full bore or starting on the down slope. I use a round Weber grill basic, domed top. What I did next was pushed the coals evenly to the edges. Once done I through the pie in the center and put the lid on with the airflow holes ¾ of the way shut, to keep the temp down. Things happen for a reason in there and they happen quick so stay close but let the heat build to melt your toppings, I would say 7- 10 minutes is all you need.

At this time I threw the other two pies in the oven at 375 degrees w/convection, for the same amount of time.

Cut those babies up and enjoy.

This has been a product of Nuthin’ Fancy Foods by Jeremy.