Barbecued Pizza

This is something that I have been wanting to try for a while, I have read about it and seen it on TV, but I have never actually tried it before. So on the last night of staying up at Pender Harbour I grilled two pizza's using what I found in the fridge and pantry for toppings.

I made one traditional style pizza with a tomato sauce, fresh tomatoes, mozzorela and fresh basil and one using pesto sauce, sliced cooked potatoes, provolone and fresh rosemary.

Now there were a couple of things I was missing for this experiment, proper flour (I was still using the easy blending flour), a pizza peel and a pizza stone.  I have seen this done with putting the dough directly on the grill, but without a pizza peel it is hard to transport a thin crust pizza with out misshaping it.  Also the easy blending flour does not make a very stretchy dough, I really would not reccomend it.  Any way nothing ventured nothing gained so I gave it a try.  I made my basic foccacia bread recipe and then formed the base of each pizza on an upturned cookie sheet.

Italian style dinner on the deck

So far this has been a horrible Summer in Vancouver, we have had far more than our share of rain and the temperatures have been way below normal.  So when Saturday was forecast to be warm and sunny we decided we should celebrate by having the neighborhood over for a dinner on the deck.

Having so recently returned from Italy I decided to make some of the food that we had there, but I did not want to waste the whole day in the kitchen as it was a beautiful day, so I kept it simple.

To start I made a antipasto platter.

I roasted some peppers and eggplant and served them with an assortment of Italian meats and a delicious fresh mozzarella.  This was just like the antipasto platters that we had put together in Florence at our Apartment

For the main course I made pizza using the foccacia bread recipe I made  the sauce by warming 3 garlic cloves that I sliced very thinly in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil until they were just golden.  Then I added a can of crushed tomatoes a handful of fresh basil chopped and 1/4 cup of red wine.  I let this simmer while the dough was rising and concentrate down.  I used this sauce on all the pizza's but three different toppings. One with Italian sausage, my home made sun dried tomatoes and boccocini

Italian sausage and boccocini

Then Over it all I sprinkled Parmesan.

Close up of the pizza with roasted eggplant and sun dried tomatoes ready for the oven

Cooking in Florence - antipasto pizza artichokes

One of the main reasons for wanting an apartment in Florence was so that I could cook with all those wonderful Italian ingredients.  As it turned out there were many reasons having an apartment it was better than a hotel, and I got a stinking cold as I arrived which meant I could not taste or smell almost the entire time.  This took some of the pleasure out of cooking (and eating too I am afraid).  Never the less cook we would.

There was a supermarket just around the corner from our apartment and hunting and gathering there was a treat.

Wonderful looking artichokes in the market

The first day that we went I saw these artichokes and I had to cook them.  I cooked them my favourite way  served in a light lemony vinaigrette.

Artichoke hearts

There was of course an abundance of antipasto fixings, hams, salamis and cheeses.  So it was easy to put out platters of these and nibble as we had our pre dinner prosseco.