Grilled Pizza - Ahoy!

mmmmmm - Grilled food is the best, lightly charred, crispy edged, soft center, full of flavor and juice. There is no cooking experience better than sitting outside and grilling up some delicious cuisine. So why stop at veggies? Why not grill everything?

This weekend we created the classic in the most delicious way - Grilled Pizza

We bought pre-made dough from Trader Joe's ($1 for each ball of dough which makes a 16'' pizza) OR ( make your own dough and gluten free dough)

We used slice serious for grilled pizza tips which include:

-Grill your dough first so that it is sorta cooked on one side, flip it

- Then add your cheese FIRST - because there is no top source of heat if your cheese is the last thing you put on you will end up with not-melted cheese. We used a new non-dairy non-soy cheese alternative we found at Whole foods; daiya.

However, Spencer pre-made his pizza like you would for the oven with the cheese on-top and super thick crust and it turned out melted and cooked through so - it will work both ways. We stayed with the tips from slice serious and ours turned out deliciouso as well.

We grilled all of our toppings (eggplant, zucchini, and purple onion) first and then chopped them up into small slices. We made:

• margarita pizza with just heirloom tomatoes, fake cheese, and basil.
• salsa pizza: salsa and cheese - delicious and spicy - next time will try with guac
• veggie pizza: cheese, sauce, eggplant, zucchini, onion
• Calzone without and with sauce - with sauce, way better - smaller the calzone the better it holds together - cheese, veggies, sauce
• protein pizza - veggies with tempeh

Pizza's I want to try in the future - Almond butter and Jam pizza, s'mores pizza (marsh-mallo and chocolate), pesto and BBQ sauced pizza, Corn crust pizza.

I know that I am a walking contradiction by eating wheat -

• one of the biggest issues I have had a hard time with is gluten and wheat products. Wheat has been shown to create thyroid problems, IBS, block mineral and vitamin absorption, headaches, tiredness, obesity, bloating, diabetes, asthma, eczema, and tooth decay, among others ***. Since I started being vegan and then especially in the paleo diet - basically starting 5 years ago, I stopped eating wheat and gluten products (oats with gluten, barley, rye). Occasionally they will sneak back onto my plate and sometimes with beneficial and sometimes with adverse reactions. Wheat and gluten like everything else is ok in MODERATION - the problem is that like Soy we eat it in everything and with everything and therefore have created diseases and allergies because of the concentration of exposure. Sadly it has become socially stigmatized in such a way that there is no way to limit it without abstaining from it - it is too engrossed in our palate and our society to just choose to live mostly without it. You either have to have an acceptable reason, like an allergy, to avoid it or accept your fate and eat it with everything. In direct contradiction is my mom, who calls herself a flex-a-terian, she eats only what she feels like eating whenever she feels like it, fortunately she is surrounded by friends who understand her inconsistent picky-ness and love her individuality. I on the other hand have for the past 5 years basically removed gluten, with occasional bouts of gluten consumption - I take the stomach and head aches I get when I eat it as the consequence of years of wheat abuse. I just make a conscious and social effort to avoid it whenever possible. The most important thing we can do with food, especially staples like gluten grains is accept that not everyone wants to eat it all the time. Just because you ate it tonight does not mean that you want to eat it a lot or every day.