We Be Grillin'

The fall weather is just so lovely right now we want to get every last bit of BBQ time in that we possibly can.  Tonight we grilled pizzas! I  made up a batch of pizza dough, the boys prepped the toppings, then out to the yard we went or our grilled pizza party!  You can either make your own dough or use store bought, it is up to you.  Get some help slicing up your favourite fixings, get everyone stretching their own dough and topping their own pizza and you get a whole lot of fun, with everyone pitching in!

Grilled pizza party

The boy works on his pizza

Pizza dough of your choice
toppings of your choice
pizza sauce of your choice
garlic oil
oil
pizza peel or non melting cutting board
tongs

Pre heat the grill, scrape clean, and oil up the grates.

Stretch out the dough into small pizza shapes....the fun here is stretching out your own dough, and making any shape the dough will go.

Brush some oil on to the dough and slap it on the grill.

no worries if some pizzas are funny shapes...it all tastes great!

Close the lid and let the dough bake for a few minutes.

Carefully remove the half baked dough from the grill and flip it over.  The cooked side is the side you will arrange your toppings on.

Slide the pizza back onto the grill, close the lid and let it bake a few more minutes.

Enjoy!!

Everyone made their own pizzas tonight and we all made extras for lunch tomorrow!

These pizzas were so darn tasty! They hit the spot and made a great lunch!

Until next time, stay warm and eat well!

Road Trippin' Day 4

Well the snow finally stopped and is almost all melted already! The boys were able to practice at one of the local high schools today and if the weather holds up, they will get to play their first double header of many tomorrow night!  Horay!!

Hubby and I managed to do a bit of shopping again sticking to the shops we don't have back home!  This means Williams Sonoma, Dick's Sporting Goods, Trader Joes, and Target! (Eeeeeee)

I have never been to a Williams Sonoma before.  I frequent their website and have friends who have picked things up for me but this was my first time.  The Williams Sonoma trip involved their Stars line that I didn't already have at home and new Wustoff chef's knife!!!  (EEEEEE)  Dick's Sporting Goods involved baseball gear.  We really don't have too many stores with a wide range of baseball gear back home.  The choices really are limited so we save up for trips to the USA.  The Boy will have to come with us to the Sports Authority to try on cleats though.  Pants and sliding shorts I can manage without him but cleats he will have to try on!

I have never been to a Trader Joes before.  I have friends who rave about this store and one of the parents on the trip wandered into one.  When he was telling us about this Trader Joes store, he wasn't impressed.  I however could have spent so much more time there.  I bought some salt grinders and vitamins but if I was closer to home....it could have been ugly wonderful.

Tomorrow (or later in the week) I will be going to Penzeys Spices!!  I have a list of places to go and this is one of them.  Even if I don't buy anything there, I just want to go!

Enough chit chat, what have we been doing for food? Well let me tell you! We are lucky enough to have a kitchen in our room! I think it may even be bigger than the Little Kitchen, and it has a dishwasher! Yesterday afternoon I made a bolognase sauce for quick lunches.  We just have to boil up some pasta! (Of course I didn't have my new chef's knife yet and suffered with the wimpy knife here, but I managed) We also stopped at the grocery store and loaded up on fruits, veggies, and sandwich fixings.

Even made Hubby's favourite chickpea salad!

Last night,since it had been snowing all day, we organized a pizza and salad dinner in the meeting room at the hotel.  We ordered from a local place called Racanelli's.  They came highly reccommended and it was very good.  Pizza and salad for 50 people is no small order but we had a nice time visiting with the other players and their families last night!

Tonight we all went as a group to the Delmar Loop. This is a neat shopping and restaurant area.  We all stopped for a bite to eat at Blueberry Hill, a St. Louis hotspot for music and food. I actually wasn't too hungry but the chicken fingers I had were delicious!  I didn't hear anyone else complain about their food at all!

It is quite unusual that we have so much time to shop and relax (and blog) but with the snow and rain the fields are just too wet.  The boys have had at least one practice a day since we arrived and we are told that tomorrow's scheduled games are on!  I hope to have baseball pics tomorrow!!

Until next time, stay warm and eat well!

A Cold Snap, Summer Dreaming, and A Hot Oven Equals Pizza!!!

As I get ready to post this, the tempurtare has plummeted and we 'welcome' our January cold snap!  -36 Celsius and it is still expected to drop!!    We are still in the midst of a nasty January cold snap.  When I woke up it was a chilly -32 Celsius (with the wind chill)....BRRRRR!!  Yesterday was indeed cold and the chili really helped warm me up, especially after venturing out into the cold to go swimming at the pool.  As of this evening things have warmed up slightly, well enough for the snow to start falling...it is only -15 Celsius....but with the wind it feels like -26 Celsius.  Yup! Gotta LOVE winter because it makes you look forward to summer and to things like this:

My favourite summer spot

Summer sunset

The Boy getting in my shot

Instead of dreaming about summer to warm up, another way to help warm things up a bit is to make pizza!!  I have been wanting to make some spinach and ricotta calzones or pizza of some sort.  Tonight is homemade pizza night and this is the perfect time to try this one out!  I used the pizza dough recipe from my Mo Pizza post.  For this particular pizza night, I used 3 cups whole wheat flour and 7 cups white.  Yes, I made the full double batch of dough.  Once the dough is made it can be frozen in single crust servings for use later.  You can even roll out the dough into single serve pizza crusts, layer between parchment paper and freeze for quick pizza dinners! (Attention issues really helps with the multi tasking)

While the pizza dough was rising, I gathered the toppings and set about getting them ready.

Make some pizza sauce by mixing together in a bowl:

• 1/2 a 28oz can of crushed tomatoes (left over from another recipe)
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tsp oregano
• healthy pinch Italian seasoning

Shred the cheeses (yes, there was more than one):

• Provolone
• Mozzarella
• Parmesan
• Ricotta (well, that didn't need shredding but I took it out of the fridge!)

 Sliced up some other items:

• Pepperoni
• Green peppers
• Onion
• Mushrooms
• Tomatoes

Assembled the spinach/ricotta mixture:

• Thawed and squeezed out 1 10 oz package of frozen, chopped spinach.
• Mixed in 1 500g container of light ricotta (approximately 1/2 pound)
• Grated in some nutmeg
• Tossed in a handful of Parmesan
• Tossed in a handful of provolone
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Okay then, now that the dough has had an hour to rise, it is time for some pizza and calzone assembly.

Because I am just that nerdy, I weighed out the dough.  Tonight I went with 3 balls of dough weighing in at 300 grams each and 6 portions of dough weighing 100 grams each.

I find the 100 gram portions perfect for single serve or small pizzas and the 300 gram portions make a nice size pizza for dinner. (I am aiming for leftovers for lunches here but as the Boy is always hungry I will be happy if it lasts throughout the evening!)

First I assembled some spinach/ricotta calzones for lunches by rolling out the 100gram portions and spooning more filling than I think can fit and sealing them all up.  I actually went with 4 calzones so I could test out 2 mini size pizzas.

Just fold in half and seal!

The 2 mini sized pizzas were a perfect base for the rest of the spinach/ricotta mixture, a couple of tomato slices and a bit more cheese!

One mini spinach/ricotta and the calzones

I then rolled out the 300 gram portions.

Sauce it up!

Pepp it up!

The other stuff!

Get cheesey!

Bake it up!

Pile o' pizza for snacks and lunches!!

Gotta love food that is already prepared and ready to eat...especially when it is homemade!  In the meantime, keep warm and eat well!















Ahhh, homemade pizza!  So worth the effort!

Mo pizza you say?

Let's face it, kids (and adults) love pizza.  Especially if it is in a convenient pocket style crust!  I am not a fan of the high salt, high fat, and low flavour store bought varieties.  That cute little dough man should be ashamed of himself!!

I have made these twice now and they are perfect to pack in school lunches.  When I ran out of pizza filling, I used ham and cheese.  There is no end to the possibities when it comes to fillings.  Whatever your family likes!!  When I make these, I like to do a big batch for the freezer so I have doubled the dough recipe. With this doubled dough recipe, you can make 32 tasty packets of yumminess.  I have adapted the basic dough recipe from Mitch's basic dough recipe to accomodate my stand mixer. There is no need to double the filling recipe as it makes lots, but if you do run out, fill the pops with whatever you have on hand! 
This is a multi step process but the results are well worth it and store well in the freezer.

Home made calzone goodness

For the filling:

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp butter

        heat butter and oil in the pan and add:

• 1 lb cremini mushrooms, chopped
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 green pepper, chopped

         saute until the water has evaporated  season with salt and pepper and add:

• 1 500gram stick (log??) of pepperoni, chopped
• 1 can tomato paste
• 1 can water (or enough to thin paste to desired consistency)
• 1 tbsp light brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
• 1 tsp oregano
• hot pepper flakes to taste

Allow filling to cool while dough rises.
For a double batch of pizza dough:

In the bowl of a stand mixer (or a large bowl if using a hand mixer), mix together

• 2 cups warm water
• 4 tbsps yeast (you can use less if  you would like but using this much yeast gives a great flavour)
• 4 tbsps honey
• 1/2 cup olive oil

While the yeast is getting its foam on:

In a bowl, combine:

• 7 cups flour (in the last batch I switched half of the flour for whole wheat)
• 1 tsp salt

Add the flour to the mixing bowl 1 cup at a time and knead with the dough hook on low.  Keep an eye on the dough as it mixes.  If it is too sticky, add more flour 1 tbsp at a time.  If the dough is too dry, add water 1 tbsp at a time.  Knead the dough for about 5 to 10 minutes.

Place dough in an oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel and allow to rise for about an hour.
Punch the dough down and divide into 32 pieces.

Glorious dough, ready to go!

***If you really want to be nerdy like I am, measure out approximately 50 grams of dough per pizza pop!

Be careful with the dough balls, they will rise again and stick together!

Say cheese!
I have used shredded cheese in the past but tonight I found it easier to cut the mozzarella into slices and use a couple of those in each calzone.

• Mozzarella, shredded
• Provolone, thinly sliced 
• add some parmesean!

Assemble the pops!!

Measure out approximately 50 g of dough

Roll a ball of dough into a circular shape

 

Add 2 scoops of filling

Top with cheese

Press edges together to seal.

Crimp the edges to keep the seal closed.

Press down with the left finger whil pushing up with the right finger.

• Bake at 400 degrees F. for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.

If you are freezing these, place cooled pops in a single layer on a cookie sheet and freeze.  Once frozen, transfer to zip top freezer bags and watch the kids make their own lunches!