Guest Grillin' (and bloggin') from Seattle

Lately I've been reading blogs alot more often than writing and right now I'm hooked on food blogs. Food writing is fun to read for so many reasons, but the best reason is that food is fantastic - to make - to eat - to look at - to smell - to read about - well, you get the idea. I found this "klutzie" blog via my college roommate who came for an extended visit and got me cooking again. She spoke of a friend who regularly made her own pasta and just like that - there was a post about just that! (I just might have to guest-post about the working-mother-of-two's attempt at making her own pasta in the future...)

Now that Summer has arrived here in the Pacific Northwest, I've been scouring the blogs for fun outdoor recipes. One led to another, then led to another, until suddenly, all of these blogs led me back to what a friend introduced us to a couple of years ago: GRILLED PIZZA!

Yes, it may sound totally crazy, but I actually even think it was Martha Stewart who was the initial inspiration for these.

Since my children (especially my son) enjoy eating pizza above all other foods, and they LOVE to help roll out the dough, we celebrated the 20th sunny-day-in-seattle-in-a-row by grillin' up some 'za! The kid-caveat here is that they don't always like the burned parts of grilled food, and they didn't get to build the pizza themselves since the grill is hot-ish but it was still a pretty huge success.

My treat was that I got to fill up my pizza with whatever I wanted! I used up all my farmer's market treats (in Seattle, the Spring Farmer's Markets are a little slim pickins).

Here's what we did:

Roll out your pizza dough (either pre-made or bought) into round-ish shapes and let it rest for a little while.

Heat up the grill so it's REALLY hot.

Grab a pizza peel/non-edged cookie sheet and sprinkle some corn meal or similarly-textured flour (semolina) on top and load up the dough.

Slide the dough onto the grill and close it.

Give it a couple minutes to puff up a bit and get brown, then flip it and let the 2nd side do the same.

Then TURN OFF THE GRILL! (otherwise... burn marks)

Dress your pizza time! 

Our kids: prefer just tomato sauce and cheese. 

Hubby: tomato sauce, cheese and any cured meat - preferably Salumi

Mine: olive oil base, potatoes, zucchini, mushrooms, gruyere and bleu cheese. I think if I could have fit more on, I would have!

I think we'll be grilling lots of pizza this summer. I'll keep reading food blogs for ideas, and maybe even find a few more to pass along.

Thanks, Mary, for the guest spot and I hope you enjoyed your day off!

until next time... yum

Kitchen Therapy

I find cooking very relaxing.  I love to come home, listen to NPR, and prepare dinner.  I honestly believe that there are few better stress reliefs than making dough (except maybe a glass of wine).  You can punch, pull, twist, and tweak; the rougher the better!

Curried Crab LinguiniI am making homemade pasta tonight. I have leftover crab which I will incorporate into the sauce.  It's damp and dreary here so I think I'm going to make a more comforting sauce with curry powder and coconut milk.  I was out of pre-mixed curry powder (whole foods has a great blend) so I tried to blend it from scratch (curry powder is a mix of spices with turmeric as a base which imparts its characteristic red color) but I was also out of coriander and the flavor just wasn't the same.  Luckily my husband works next to a grocery store!

A bit of Cobbler

I had the best bbq of my life today.  Actually, I don't know if it was truly the best bbq, but we were so hungry that smoked crap would have tasted delicious.  We decided to go for a bike ride which turned into a 54 mile bike ride. We were tracking our journey based on how much further we had to peddle to get to the BBQ shack (mile 44). But seriously, Carolina Brothers Pit BBQ on the WO&D trail is wonderful!

Its Memorial day and my original plan was to bake a rhubarb pie.  I was too tired and we didn't have enough time when I got home, so the pie turned into a cobbler.  The beauty of cobber is that it is easy to make, you can use virtually any fruit, and its yummy!  I like my cobbler tart with a nice biscuit crust on top.  Since it has a relatively low sugar content, it also doubles as breakfast!

Amazingly, I did not burn myself tonight.  The last time I made cobbler I placed it on my counter to cool and then reached up and over to get plate out of the cabinet.  My belly grazed the side of the extremely hot pan and unfortunately for me, my shirt pulled up when I lifted my arms up to reach into the cabinet, leaving a nice welt on my stomach.  Word of advice...don't burn your stomach.  it hurts.