Who Knew Homemade Pizza Dough Was So EASY....You'll Never Buy It Again!

Grilled Pizza 

Cooking Time 3 Hours; Yields 3-4 People 

(Makes Two Separate Pizzas)

Ingredients 

Dough

1 c. warm water

2 T olive oil

1 and 3/4 c. bread flour (1/4 c. extra flour if dough is too wet)

2 tsp sugar

1 and 1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp rapid rising yeast

Toppings

1 head garlic; broken down into individual whole cloves 

1 c. olive oil

1 tsp red chili flakes

2 plum tomatoes, seeded and diced

1 tsp salt

1 T purple onion; minced

Fontina Cheese (shredded) , Mozzarella (shredded) , Romano (fine grated)

3-4 white mushrooms; sliced

pepperoni slices 

2 basil leaves, chopped 

Cooking Instructions

1. Dough….
2. Start with making your dough because it has to sit and rise for 2 hours.
3. Take your food processor (with your dough blade) and add flour, sugar, salt, and yeast.  Pulse it a couple times to combine
4. In a measuring cup add your warm water and olive oil.  Turn your food processor on and slowly pour the water mixture into your dry ingredients.  It will start to form a dough ball.  If your dough seems too wet, add 1 T of flour at a time until it meets pizza dough consistency.
5. Lightly grease a medium size bowl with butter and place your dough ball into the bowl.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap for about 2 hours or until the dough doubles in size.
   
6. Toppings….
7. In a small sauce pan over low to medium low heat add whole garlic cloves, red pepper flake, and olive oil.  Let simmer for 15 minutes and then fully cool.  This is going to act as your sauce on your pizza
8. Go ahead and seed/dice your tomatoes.  Also dice up your onion.  Add your tomatoes, onions, and 1 tsp of salt in a small bowl and set aside.
9. Shred all your cheese so you aren’t struggling with that later
10. Check on your dough after two hours.  Punch the dough down and divide into two balls.  Flour the dough and counter top (prevents the dough from sticking to everything).  Roll or toss (if feeling frisky) the pizza dough into pizza crusts.  Remember they don’t have to be a perfect circle.
11. Place your pizza dough on a piece of floured foil; it makes it a lot easier to transfer to the grill without the dough falling apart.  Let the dough rest for 15 minutes, just to make sure it doesn’t loose shape
12. Now I personally like to chop up some of the roasted garlic from the infused olive oil and add that to my tomato and onion mixture (just depends on how much garlic you like)
13. Time to start the grill.  Add charcoal and two pieces of smoking wood (I use pecan).  Bring the temperature of the grill up to 500 degrees
14. Once the grill hits 500 degrees.  Brush your grill grates with your garlic infused olive oil, and the top of you pizza dough with the garlic infused olive oil.  This is where the foil helps…when placing your dough on the grill just lay it olive oil side down and peel off the foil on the non olive oil side.  Grill one side for 1-4 minutes or until you have some nice grill marks on the dough.
15. Remove the dough, grilled side up, and get ready to start placing the toppings.  
16. Again, grilled side up…generously brush your dough with infused garlic olive oil, and sprinkle fontina cheese first.  Next, your pepperonis, mushrooms, and a light dusting of Romano cheese.  Finally, add your mozzarella and top that with your diced tomato mixture.  If I have any left over fontina I also try to add just a tiny bit more to help keep the tomatoes in place (if you don’t no worries).
17. These are just some of my favorite toppings....you can always make up your own toppings to personalize your pizza
18. Very carefully carry your fully assembled pizza down to the grill and grill for another 2 minutes, rotate, and then 2 more minutes.  
    
19. Remove, top with fresh basil, and cut into your luscious crunchy crust.
20. Enjoy!!!
    
    (***TIP: a properly baked pizza doesn't droop when holding, it holds it shape....thanks NYC and NJ for rubbing off on me!!!)