Speedy Weeknight Pizza

Last weekend, we were enjoying a lovely dinner out with friends. We have reached that sweet spot in parenthood where we can leave our teenagers at home to fend for themselves while we enjoy a date night. As our meal was wrapping up and we were contemplating dessert, I got a text from our oldest saying the oven was not heating as it should.

As we were celebrating a birthday with friends, I didn’t think too much of it. In fact, I told myself it was probably nothing and she just did something wacky, as distracted teens do often.

Sadly, it was not just operator error. Something was clearly wrong, as it was taking literally forever to heat and would not get above 200ºF by the time we got home.

I was picturing a week or so of stovetop meals, and implementing the slow cooker and Instant Pot until we got someone out to look at it.

But a miracle happened, and Mitch called the repair people Monday morning and they were out to our house amazingly quickly – the same day! It was determined it was not just an element but the control panel – as in the most expensive thing to replace on an oven. We hummed and hawed over whether to replace it or get a newer model. I decided to keep our good ol’ standby.

Then another miracle occurred. They had the part in stock and were able to come back the SAME day to finish the repair. Customer service is in fact still alive and well and things were back to normal in our kitchen in no time at all.

But as I said, I had visions of cooking meals without the oven, so I had already been thinking about attempting to cook pizza on the grill. I thought I would still give that a whirl anyway.

I know I have shared variations on pizza before, including making dough yourself. If you have the time and would like to try that, you can find the directions here.

But while we were out on our date on Saturday, we did a quick run through Trader Joe’s and I grabbed one of their fresh packaged pizza dough balls. It is a great option for a fast pizza and it is well priced at less than $3.

Using a pre-made dough eliminates lots of time, making it an easy weeknight option. I did make my own pizza sauce, but that only takes about 20 minutes and can be done earlier in the day or even a few days ahead and stored in the fridge until you are ready to use it.

All you have to do is spread the dough out on a lightly floured surface until you get a nice loose circle that fits your cast iron skillet. Yep, I pulled that bad boy out again for this meal.

Sprinkle a little corn meal into the bottom of your skillet and lay the dough inside, pushing up the edges a bit on the side, if you wish. Spread with pizza sauce, cheese and toppings of your choice. We just went with plain cheese this time, as my pepperoni was MIA at the time of grilling.

I tried to find some hard and fast rules and times for grilling a pizza, but every grill is different, so heating times will vary. We set our gas grill to heat to 450ºF. We have a 3 burner system, so once it got to temperature, we turned down the middle burner, so as not to burn the bottom of the pizza immediately.

Place the whole cast iron skillet onto the grill and close the lid. Rotate the pan every couple of minutes, keeping a close eye on it.

Because your grill is so hot to begin with, it doesn’t take very long at all to cook the pizza all the way through.

In fact, we almost overcooked ours. We removed ours after about 10 minutes, but I would say start checking closely after about 7 minutes. The top should be nice and bubbly and the edges golden brown.

Using sturdy oven mitts, remove the grill and place on a trivet. Carefully slide the pizza onto a cutting board, then cut and serve.

For our first attempt, I was quite pleased. The inside was cooked well, with the perfect chew to crunch factor on the crust. We will definitely be fine-tuning the process in the future.

Pizza is my husband’s favorite food, and can have endless possibilities for toppings. Being able to cook one up quickly on the grill rather than heating up the oven on a hot day is a great option. Give it a try this weekend.