You know that first morning after you’ve had visitors (the good ones) for awhile? It’s so sadly quiet and empty feeling. And the real world certainly comes back with a jolt! Boo. But, we had a great visit with my parents, and for their last dinner we had homemade pizza.
It was a close tie between pork chops (from our uber-local pork), or the pizza. But in the end, mozzarella and fresh dough won out! Normally we crank the oven up as high as it goes, for at least 2 hours prior to pizza baking…but um, that doesn’t mix well with high summer temps. We dabbled with the grilling idea, but after chicken coop building and a long day, we went with another concept.
Broiled pizza. On the back of a super, super hot cast iron skillet. Ours is a 12 inch. The recipe we used said to pre-heat the cast iron via the stove top on high for 10 minutes. Ours only went about 6-7 minutes, before I was sure either the skillet or the stove top was going to spontaneously combust! And then on went the pizza (we also added one sheet of floured foil between dough and cast iron, for fear it would stick) and into the oven, broiler on high.
The first one got a little overly toasty because we had the rack one rung too high. But once that was fixed, the pizzas came out pretty freaking good! Again, hard to ruin good dough, mozzarella and fresh toppings!
Next time, perhaps we’ll try the grill…I’ve heard really good things about grilled pizza!
Want to make your own? Here’s a great place to start: Smitten Kitchen’s 10 Paths to Painless Pizza-Making
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LOVE PIZZA!!!!!!
And a beer!
Hey Guys!
That’s really funny about your pizza! Here in TN NOBODY can make a decent pizza, so we’ve have to resort to homemade dough and making our own pizza, which is not big deal because my dad was a baker before he was a contractor, and he taught me how to bake.
We use a cast iron pizza pan (12″) too! Tip: if you want to make sure it doesn’t stick, just buy parchment paper. They have a new kind — one side is foil and one side is parchment, if you can find it. The foil is nicer because you can comform it to the pan, whereas regular parchment paper doesn’t bend very well.
You don’t have to preheat the skillet on top of the stove. Just preheat the stove, with the skillet in it, to 425 degrees. Then make your pizza on the parchment paper, use plenty of flour when the dough starts to get sticky. When the dough is the right size, put your toppings on it. Open your over, pull out the rack, but not the skillet, and place the dough WITH the parchment paper right on top of the skillet. 15 mins for light pizza, 20 mins for darker. Comes out perfect!
If you want to grill pizza (or anything else), Dale’s son, Jeff’s is a grillmaster. He has a $2,000 grill, and he actually writes grilling articles for the manufacturer of the grill. He grills just about everything, including pizza. So if you want to know the secrets of a good grilled pizza, send a friend request to Jeff Gardner. That is Dale’s son, and he is a great cook, also a computer geek. You can get his name from my home page and send him a message. Just tell him who you are.
Happy grilling!
Thanks for the tips Barb!