Grilled Pizza

Ingredients

1 Packaged Pizza Dough

Olive Oil, just a drizzling

Your favorite Tomato Sauce

1 Fresh Mozzarella Ball

1 Cup Fresh Basil

Pizza on the grill is so tasty and one of my summer favs. We've eaten it every Monday (while tuning into the Bachelorette, obvi) 3 weeks in a row. It's incredibly simple to make.

Directions:

First, preheat the grill (you want it to heat up to about 400 degrees) &

prepare the dough. I just use the packaged kind that you can buy at any supermarket.

You should knead the generously floured dough for about 5 minutes... I find that it's much easier to roll out the pie if I knead first. Otherwise, it just keeps retracting like a rubber band.

When your pie is rolled into a thin disk (or whatever shape it decides to become, hexagonal pizza is just as good..) slice 1 large mozzerella ball into thin slices and brush the pizza dough lightly with olive oil.

Then, throw your dough onto the piping hot grill, olive oil side down. Let it cook for about 2 minutes (that's it! it cooks quickly) and flip. Gather your sliced mozzarella, your favorite tomato sauce and some fresh basil and build your pizza right on the grill.

Pizza will cook in about 15 minutes, or when dough is crisp and cheese is melted and bubbly.

So good!

Another pizza topping idea: I also made a BBQ chicken pizza with some leftover shredded BBQ chicken, sliced red onion and grated mozzarella cheese. Just in case you want a little variety in your life...

A LIGHT SUMMER MEAL

Sometimes the best meals are the simplest and easiest to make... just fresh ingredients paired right.

An ensalada caprese is delicious when your ingredients are fresh. And since it's tomato season, its the perfect time to make this salad.

Tomato, mozzarella, pesto. Stack 'em!

To make the pesto... take a bunch of basil (abt 1.5 cups), 1/2 cup of olive oil, 2 minced garlic cloves, 1/3 cup pine nuts and 1 fresh squeezed lemon. Blend it up in a food processor and add a sprinkle of parm cheese and some salt and pepper to taste.

Then simply line up the tomato and mozzarella slices, adding a teaspoon of pesto on top of each mozzarella slice. You can also add a sprinkle of salt and cracked pepper over the top. Add a couple of basil leaves for garnish if you're feeling extra fancy!

GOLDEN CRAB CAKES

Sometimes I think anything coated in breadcrumbs and fried would taste good. Actually fried breadcrumbs alone are pretty damn delicious...

These crab cakes are really easy to make. You can add or subtract veggies based on what you have at home. I like corn, red pepper, celery and onion just because they make for really nice color.

So, to make the crabcakes... chop up the 2 celery stalks, 1/2 yellow onion, and 1 red pepper and add to a small can of crab(abt 1 lb). Mix in a couple of tablespoons of mayo, 1 freshly squeezed lemon, several dashes of soy sauce and 1-2 tspns Dijon mustard. Add in 1 egg so that the mixture sticks together.

Now, Sprinkle on the breadcrumbs (I used the regular Italian seasoning kind, abt 3/4 cup).

Begin forming crab cakes to any size you like. Coat the outer part of the cakes once more in breadcrumbs, and place in hot oil.

Fry until golden brownish (abt 5 min) and place on a paper towel to rid any excess oil.

MEXICAN FIESTA

This is one of those meals I only cook on special occasions. Mainly because there are a lot of steps, especially when you have a crowd where everyone wants something different: veggie taco, steak taco, fish taco, with onions, no onions, sliced avocado, no avocado... you get the idea. It's one of those meals that works best as a make-your-own buffet.

So here it is: fresh guacamole, flank steak tacos, baja fish tacos, special sauces, a slew of taco additions and Mexican rice. Viva Mexico

GUACAMOLE

If you're going to do Mexican, you absolutely have to start it off with some fresh guacamole.
It's the law. Mexican law. La ley de Mexico.
Guacamole is really simple to make too.
To make the guac... Just smash up a few avocados (no need to puree...guacamole is best with some chunks of avocado in it) and add about 1/2 large yellow onion (or a whole small one) finely chopped and a bunch of cilantro. Then, add the juice from two limes and some s & p to taste. Nada mas!

Tacos Ricos...!

STEAK TACOS

To start off your steak tacos, season flank steak with salt, pepper and garlic salt. Grill to medium rare.
Meanwhile, wrap the soft tortillas in foil and place in oven and heat at a low temp (under 200 degrees).

The sauce that really makes these tacos delicious is the chimicurri sauce. To make the chimicurri sauce, chop 1/2 cup cilantro and 4 cloves garlic. Add to the food processor with 1/3 cup white wine vinegar and abt 1/4 cup olive oil. Season with s & p.

To assemble the tacos, slather some chimichurri sauce on the warm tortilla, add a few pieces of meat and scoop in some fresh chopped tomato and red onion.

FISH TACOS

For the non-meat eating crowd, I prepared some baja fish tacos. I don't really know what makes a baja fish taco baja, but it sounds authentic. Purchase your favorite white flaky fish (I used tilapia but any mild white fish will do).

To prepare, cut the fish into 1 inch cubes and coat lightly in flower seasoned with salt and pepper. Drop the fish in a bowl of egg wash, which is just 1 egg with 1-2 tbspns water. Then coat the fish cubes in panko bread crumbs. You can use regular old italian bread crumbs as well but I find the panko bread crumbs much crunchier.

Place the fish into a pan of hot olive oil. Fry the fish and remove when lightly browned, crispy and perfecto and dry on a paper towel.

As a sauce for this taco, I like my a sort-of tartarish sauce. To make the tartar sauce, take a couple of hefty scoops of mayo and add the juice of 1/2 lemon plus a sprinkling of taco seasoning.

Top the warm tortilla with the mayo sauce, fried fish, sliced avocado and some dried coleslaw (which I guess technically would just be cabbage, right?).

MEXICAN RICE

Whenever I make rice, I find that it's most flavorful if I first toast the rice with some olive oil in a pan and then cook with chicken broth. I made Mexican rice this way as well.

Rice soaks up a lot of liquid so you will have to keep adding chicken broth to the pan until the rice becomes tender.

Once the rice almost tender, add 1 finely chopped onion, 1 chopped red pepper and 2 cloves garlic to the same pan. When the onions are translucent and rice is cooked add several tablespoons of tomato puree. Season the rice generously with salt and pepper to taste.

4TH OF JULY TARTA

I am a crappy baker. I don't like to follow directions. I prefer to start with some ideas and adjust as I go. That never works with baking...substitutions for flour, eggs or sugar don't end well.

That's why this cake is just a box of white duncan hines...but fancified.

I sliced the cake down the middle and filled it with cool whip mixed with diced strawberries, which I pureed together in the food proceesor. Then I spread vanilla icing over the cake and topped with blueberries/strawberries to create the stars and stripes on old glory and voilà!...a July 4th dessert at its best.

Cheeseburger Sliders & Waffle Fries

Who doesn't like a bite-size cheesburger? Well, me, that vegetarian thing sometimes gets in the way... but everyone else really seemed to enjoy them.

To make the sliders, I sliced 1 small yellow onion in long thin strips and cooked over med-low heat with a little bit of olive oil. Continue to scrape the brown bits on the bottom of the pan as the onions cook. When the onions begin to brown (abt 15 min of cooking), I like to hit them with a dash of balsamic vinegar to bring out the sweetness. Let cook for abt 5 more minutes.

For the burger meat, I just took ground chuck (abt 1/5lb) mixed with about 1 tspn garlic powder, 1 tspn onion powder and a little bit of salt and pepper. Form small mini-patties, about 1.5-2 inch circumferance. Once the patties are formed, you can throw them straight on the grill.

Meanwhile, cook the bacon and thinly slice the cheddar cheese.

The burgers cook quickly. As soon as you flip, you can top with cheddar cheese so that it gets nice and melty. You can also open up your buns onto the top rack of the grill in order to heat them.

Build your sliders: Bun, burger, cheese, bacon and onion. Pair with seasoned waffle fries and fresh watermelon slices.

WAFFLE FRIES

Although it's much healthier to bake your fries in the oven, they just don't taste as good.

If you're going to splurge and have fries, do it up right and fry 'em. Heat olive oil in a deep skillet and stick a frozen fry in the oil (just 1). When the fry begins to sizzle you know the oil is ready to cook.

After you've fried and have placed the fries on a paper towel rid excess oil, sprinkle evenly with salt, garlic powder, onion powder, a little bit of paprika and fresh squeezed lime juice.