Make Hay, I mean PIZZA, While the Sun Shines.

My oven is finally fixed. It was a decent day off. I mowed off the back land, got the oven repaired, went over a PowerPoint on blunt force trauma injuries for a colleague (yeah I know, I never truly take a day off) and hit the grocery store. Expect popovers this weekend.

However right now it is almost 90 and the humidity is much greater than these parts normally sees. So I will save the inauguration of the stove until morning and will cook my dinner on my little barbecue. No need for the big gas grill, this is all I need.

But I wanted pizza. Pizza on the barbecue? Yes. It's easier than you think. The method I used mimicked the heat of an oven. It's preferable to cook it on a small thin pan to evenly distribute the heat. I used a little disposable one left over from the holidays. There are recipes for grilling the dough, flipping to grill it the other side and adding topping then, but my goal was simply to cook it with a minimum of fuss and oven like results. But without heating up my house so sleeping would be cool and enjoyable later.

Start by rolling out your dough about 1/4 inch thick and try to keep it pretty even. This was dough made from scratch in the bread machine. (recipes for pizza are in sidebar). You don't need to go find the calipers for this one, but it shouldn't be too thick. You also don't want the toppings too thick so they cook through and evenly. I went for Canadian Bacon, finely diced pineapple (not the big chunks most pizza parlors use), a little sharp cheddar, mozzarella and some dried herbs.

I have a charcoal Style BBQ that's about 28 inches x 28 inches. This will take a fair number of briquettes, I probably used about 60-70. After they are lit and covered with ash (about 10-20 minutes) you need to arrange them around the edges of where the pizza will be, so they surround the cooking area, but don't actually rest in a pile directly under it.Place the grill part of the barbecue back in place and close the lid, making sure the little vents are open to ensure the most efficient heating. Your goal is a barbecue temperature of about 425 - 450 degrees before putting the pizza on the grill. This mimics the effect of an oven and the edges of the crust will rise up, staying crisp on the outside and chewy in the middle while the center of the dough, rolled thin, stays tender to the bite. (If you want the thin, crisp style of pizza, forget the little pan and cook directly on a rack but that's a whole different set of instructions).

Use a little cooking thermometer on the center of the grill if you have one. When it's good and hot, place the pizza on the small pan in the center of the barbecue and CLOSE THE LID. For mine, it cooked for about 16 minutes. Do NOT peek until you are at about 13 minutes. Remove, let cool a few minutes than serve out on the deck with a frosty beer while you look out at all you did todaySummer's kind of nice now, isn't it?

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