Summer Grilling

Last night after a long day of work, I went to my friend Taylor's house to lay by the pool and do some grilling. Taylor has the perfect house to grill and entertain. Last year during the summer, she hosted a pool party with all of our friends and we spent all afternoon swimming, grilling and hanging out. We even made a gigantic slip and slide and acted like 5 year olds. We covered ourselves in soap and slipped all the way down her lawn. It was one of my favorite memories from last summer.

Yesterday was just a casual night. Taylor is leaving for Europe to study abroad at the end of the month and her brother Steve just celebrated a birthday so we all wanted to get together to grill and hang out. It was such a fun and relaxing night and we all cooked!!

Grilling is the best on a summer night when your with a bunch of people. It makes cooking fun and carefree. When I talk about grilling, I'm not talking about grilling burgers and hot dogs. I'm talking about making fresh and healthy meals on the grill. Last night we started off with a fresh brown tomato and mozzarella salad with a simple garlic and balsamic vinaigrette. I spotted the brown tomatoes at Trader Joe's and was curious to see what they tasted like. I'm glad I tried them because they were probably one of the best tomatoes that I've ever had before. They were perfectly sweet and delicious.

Our main course was not something that normally comes to mind when your thinking of grilling. Pizza. Grilled pizza is 10X better than making pizza in a oven. Of course if you have a pizza oven then you clearly have the advantage but for people with only a regular oven, I would recommend ditching the oven and grilling your pizza from now on! It is so easy.

We grilled a variety of vegetables that are in season for our pizza toppings. We grilled eggplant, zucchini, peppers and fennel. We also grilled whole tomatoes and whole cloves of garlic wrapped in foil to make homemade pizza sauce.

For the vegetables, before you place them on the grill, marinate in olive oil, salt, pepper, oregano and chili flakes. Place the tomatoes like you see in the picture above so that you don't burn them. Grill all of your vegetables and place on a dish when each piece is done. 

For the tomato sauce, take the grilled tomatoes and grilled garlic cloves and place in a bowl. To extract the garlic, unwrap the foil and squeeze out the garlic from its shell. Add salt, pepper and oregano and add a few tbs of tomato pasta. Blend until smooth. Keep tasting your sauce to see if you need more seasoning or more tomato paste. 

Once your tomato sauce and vegetables are done, roll out your pizza dough. You can either make or buy your pizza dough. We bought our dough from Trader Joe's to save time. 

Roll out the dough and place it on a pizza dish to prevent the dough from burning on the grill. Before you place it on the grill, drizzle olive oil over the dough. Grill for 5 minutes without any toppings and then add the sauce, goat cheese and vegetables. Grill for another 5-10 minutes until your crust is perfectly crispy and your sauce is bubbling. Take it off the grill and garnish with chopped basil and olive oil. 

This meal is the perfect meal to make on a summer night. It is easy and perfect for sharing. We ended our night with Taylor's delicious berries and rhubarb crumble. It was fantastic! 

This crumble had all the elements of a flawless dessert. The sweet berries contrasted so well with the tart rhubarb and the crumble topping added that extra crunch. But we couldn't forget the most important part, ice cream. French Vanilla ice cream to be exact :) Perfect end to a perfect meal! 

I didn't provide an exact recipe for this menu because it is really up to you with what you want to grill and put on your pizza. The sky's the limit!! 

Anne