Grilled Pizza

We've been playing with pizza lately. I'm a total pizza junkie, by the way, and while delivery is convenient, it gets pricey.

Our first pizza making attempt was actually to replicate one from back home. I miss Deano's and Bisbano's! Anyway, the one I'd been feigning for that particular week was a spicy shrimp pizza -- no one puts shrimp on pizza out here, and if they do, it's not in the combination that we used to get back home -- so we made it ourselves. And it turned out pretty good.

But last night we decided to try grilled pizza. My aunt sent me a dough recipe for grilling and it might be my imagination, but I think it was slightly different than the dough we'd used for our shrimp pizza. I could be wrong, but it seemed less doughy. You can see that we still used one of those foil grill sheets, just in case. (Regular dough recipe came from Food Network Magazine's pizza insert a few months back. The recipe can be found here. I can't find the grilled dough recipe, but suspect that decreasing the water slightly will work to get the same result with any standard pizza dough.)

I rolled mine out really thin -- Mike made his a little thicker, but the crust charred on the bottom, so for grilling, thin seems to be the better way to go. We then topped the pizzas on the foil sheets to make for easier transport to the grill. With the burners on low and the lid down, it took about 5 minutes or so to cook.

All in all, I think our dough needs a little adjustment. The pizza kind of tasted like frozen grocery store pizza and I think adding some flavor to the dough itself may fix that a bit. We've also yet to come up with a sauce recipe so that could be a reason as well. Another note is that while the dough did cook through, I prefer my toppings a bit more cooked than five minutes allowed. Any longer, though, and you end up with blackened crust. Remember to go thin!

Next step in my homemade pizza making process will be making my own giardienara since I've discovered that it's pretty amazing on pizza!

And if you want to add shrimp Deano's style: Buy 1 lb of peeled, deveined popcorn or slightly larger shrimp -- you won't need the whole pound, but you can use the rest on a salad or something. Boil in Zatarain's Crab Boil (comes in a small concentrate bottle -- follow bottle instructions carefully!).

For shrimp pizza, I like pepperoni, onion, spicy Italian sausage, and bell pepper. For regular pizza, I love fresh jalapeno with pepperoni and/or pineapple. But hey, it's pizza! You can do whatever you want with it! I would also recommend trying chicken cooked in crab boil. That would be fantastic on a pizza as well.

Carrot Hummus

Last fall, Mike and I ate at a local restaurant that boasted a vegetarian/non vegetarian menu. The idea was that there were entrees that were totally vegetarian (or even vegan) that you could have as is, or you could add a protein to. I thought it was a really great concept, especially since Mike and I are not vegetarian but have friends who are. That particular night, we also had friends who kept Kosher eating with us (not a lot of acceptable restaurants once you throw both those aspects into the mix, although Boulder is better than other places).

The restaurant, sadly, closed not long after we ate there -- and I didn't even have a chance to go back and try to figure out some of the dishes I wanted to replicate in my kitchen. We ordered an appetizer of various spreads with cheese, veggies, and breads. The restaurant also had a house dip that they served as well. I had thought that there were two variations of hummus, but now I'm not so sure. I do know that they served a carrot hummus that had a distinct cumin flavor.

Having never made hummus on my own, and with great local brands at the stores here, there's really no need to, but I thought that the carrot hummus would have to be my first shot. I found this recipe at a fat free vegan blog and set it aside.

Today, with my sparkly new engagement ring, my various OTC beauty products in hopes of avoiding more expensive actual procedures (teeth whitening!), and very aware that both Mike and I need to eat better (i.e. less cream and cheese!) so that I can lose some weight before trying on wedding dresses, I whipped out the carrot hummus recipe for a healthy attempt at lunch.

Now, the two major changes I made to the recipe were these:

No fresh ginger -- not a bit of it on hand

Cumin, cumin, cumin!

In the end, after fighting with a blender and a magic bullet to get the smooth hummus texture I wanted (note there is no oil in this recipe -- I have a sneaking suspicion that might have helped the blending situation, but not my waistline. I added more lemon and a bit more water to try and help the fight in the end), I spread the mixture over some whole wheat bread, cut up a tomato, added some lettuce and mozzarella and made a hopefully lowfat and healthy sandwich that will tide me over 'til supper.

What that meal will be, I'm not sure. But I can tell you it will include butternut squash and chicken breasts!

Pasta Salad

I'm a big fan of the idea of pasta salad, but somehow they never seem to deliver. The best I've had is actually a smoked mozzarella pasta salad at Whole Foods. Last night, feeling guilty over my usual cream and cheese laden dishes that have obviously added some heft to both Mike and me -- and with a wedding and a honeymoon to start considering -- I decided we needed something with more veggies for dinner on our first night back.

But I was stumped, until I started leafing through the latest Food Network Magazine and came across the Roasted-Pepper Pasta Salad. I did make some slight changes to it, though, with my pantry options that were available. The recipe called for toasted almonds and bocconcini. I didn't actually have bocconcini, but did have some mozzarella we'd bought for pizza last week. I also added some roasted onions to the mix and substituted farfalle for the mezzi rigatoni.

The combination of roasted garlic and lemon makes a really flavorful "sauce" for the pasta -- one of the biggest complains I usually have. I also loved the roasted peppers. Roasted peppers are so great! I always see the pros roasting them right over the gas flame on the oven ranges on tv. I did try that once and it kind of failed. Oven roasting is super easy, though. It's pretty hard to screw them up. You can use them in dishes like this or you can blend them into heavy cream and cream cheese for a great sauce -- and there I go with the cream and the cheese again!

Ah well. We'll see what kitchen adventures I can cook up over the coming months in order to try and get us into shape. I'm thinking pork roast this evening but not sure what I'll do with it just yet.