Blue Cheese, Lettuce, and Tomato Grilled Pizza

It was 80 degrees today (on March 2!) and it put me in the mood to grill something.  This is a recipe I probably would never have tried had I not tasted it first.  Leah spotted this recipe a few months ago and made it for the family.  She has an eye for good recipes and she was right about this one.  Though at first glance it might not sound good, it is absolutely delicious. Today, I gave it a try.  It was really easy to prepare and everybody in the family loved it!  It’s a wonderful combination of crispy grilled pizza dough. fresh crunchy greens and a simple balsamic vinaigrette that blends together perfectly.  It really is a surprise when you taste it.

The ingredients below can easily be adjusted for more or less.

Pizza dough -homemade or purchased (I made my own dough, my recipe is in the Grilled Pizza blog entry)  I fed 6 people and made two recipes of dough.  If you purchase,  1 lb. of dough will make about 3 personal sized pizzas.  The following ingredients will make enough for 6 pizzas:

1/2 box grape tomatoes, cut in half

1/4 red onion, thinly sliced

2 cloves garlic, finely minced

2 Tablespoons good olive oil

2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar (do not use a different vinegar, balsamic is crucial for this recipe)

salt and pepper to taste

1 cup crumbled blue cheese

1 cup or so shredded mozzarella

1 bag hearts of Romaine (or chop 3 Romaine heads)

real crumbled bacon bits, (optional)

additional olive oil for brushing dough right before grilling

Directions:

Make enough pizza dough to get the number of servings you need.  I made two recipes of my grilled pizza dough(in a previous blog entry) because I was cooking for 6 people.  Each recipe will yield 3 crusts.  While dough is rising, begin to prepare the salad ingredients.  Mix tomatoes, minced garlic and sliced red onion in a large bowl.  Add two Tablespoons balsamic vinegar and 2 Tablespoons good olive oil, and salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.

Once dough has risen, divide each recipe into three equal pieces.

Roll each piece into a circle.  Don’t even try to make it a perfect circle, your dough circles won’t be perfect, but that adds to the homemade charm!  Once you have all the dough rolled into individual size pizza rounds, layer them on a baking sheet with parchment paper between the layers (don’t use wax paper, it’ll stick).

While you are preparing the dough, go ahead and start the charcoal for the grill.  Once the grill is hot, brush the top of each round with olive oil and place the  oiled side down on the grill rack.

Brush olive oil on the top side and grill for 1-2 minutes.  Watch carefully, they cook very quickly.

When the first side is done, flip it over and sprinkle lightly with mozzarella and blue cheese.  Don’t go too heavy on the cheese, just a light sprinkling is perfect.  You don’t want it smothered with gooey cheese.

The cheese won’t have time to totally melt and smooth out, but it will get soft. Cook the second side for about the same amount of time (1-2 minutes).  You can check the doneness by lifting the pizza up with tongs to see if it is good and  brown.  Watch it closely because it can burn.

It really helps to have two people manning the grill because it moves very quickly.  You are placing, flipping, sprinkling, removing and starting all over again.  We especially enjoy this on nice warm days like today so that everyone can be outside and get in on the action.  We used two grills and had all 6 pizzas done in a fairly short period of time.

Once the pizza is done, stir the Romaine into the tomato vinaigrette mixture and toss to combine.

Immediately top the hot pizza slices with a pile of the salad mixture. Sprinkle with bacon bits if you like.

Enjoy!