Grilled Margherita and 3 Cheese Pizzas. Plus a bonus mid-week dinner, and some ice cream…
You guys. I have a HUGE problem. I’m lazy. I mean, I do lots of stuff, but I don’t like to work out. I hate it, in fact. And it’s Italian Summer, and I AM GOING TO BE GIGANTIC!!! Lol! Not really, but maybe. I really do hate working out. And love cooking and eating, so this could be a problem. I’m going to have to find some motivation somewhere, but until then, let me tell you about this pizza!!
Last summer I made pizza dough and wasn’t really impressed with it. This time, whoa baby, MUCH better. And of course, because it’s Lidia’s recipe (duh). The dough was super easy to throw together. I made it this morning, and then while it was doing its thing in the fridge, I went about my day.
I read a few recipes online for pizza sauce. The one I used was a Pinterest find, and what I liked about it was it was cooked ahead of time. I did not make the recipe on Lidia’s page with the dough. Most of the pizza sauce recipes I saw were not pre-cooked, and I knew cooking it and letting it sit before putting on the pizza was going to make those flavors much more intense. Yep! Perfection.
I put together two different pizzas, a Margherita which is the tomato sauce, mozzarella, and basil, simple but delicious. For the cheese pizza, I mixed it up a little and added some Asiago along with the shredded mozzarella and Parmesan. And yes, I hand shredded all of it off of blocks of cheese and a ball of mozzarella. I warned you last week! Both of them were SO GOOD! The crust was my favorite kind, a little thicker, but not like a deep dish, the perfect hand-tossed version (although I did not toss it, I’m messy enough as it is!). And yes, I have leftovers for lunch tomorrow, so take that stupid Monday! EDIT: I forgot to add that both pizzas were cooked on the grill on a pizza stone. Put the stone on the grill and let it get hot, 500 degrees plus, and they cook FAST, maybe 5-8 minutes each.
We finished off our meal with some homemade butterscotch pecan ice cream that I had churned and frozen Thursday night. The recipe is from David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop cookbook (use the interwebs). We have made TONS of the recipes from that book and that one is my favorite! Perfect way to start off the summer!
We also had a bonus meal this week! On Thursday my sweet friend Chandra came over for a little socially distant (mostly) girl time, and I made some of Giada’s Lemon Spaghetti (you’ll have to look that one up too) for dinner. Ok, so maybe I really AM going to have to start working out…
Cheers! ~ Jen
