Pizza Caprese on the Grill

People have been telling me I need to post again - I just keep forgetting to take those photos before we devour our food, and I'm embarrassed to keep posting without them. However, this meal was too good to not share.

Tonight we had a fantastic easy summer dinner made up on the spot. I had some pizza dough from Trader Joe's (I always walk by that and think "pizza dough is so easy to make, there's no reason to buy it", but this time I thought, "Oh! It's only 99 cents! Maybe that's worth saving the trouble of making it sometimes." And I bought a bag to try), some pesto from last summer in the freezer, a big bowl of sweet grape tomatoes from our garden, and some mozzarella, both pre-shredded and fresh balls I'd bought to go with the tomatoes, thinking ensalada caprese would be in order.

Clay rolled out the dough while I thawed the pesto in the microwave and cut the tomatoes and mini mozzarella balls in half. We threw the dough on the preheated grill on Medium heat (ours is a gas grill) and cooked until one side was golden brown and a bit scorched in spots. Zoe picked some fresh basil from the garden. Then we flipped it over, put the toppings on the cooked side (a smear of pesto (about 1/4 c), then the shredded mozzarella (about 1 cup), then 1 cup halved grape tomatoes, about 1/2 cup halved fresh mozzarella balls, and a handful of sliced fresh basil. Zoe likes to imagine storms when she cooks and made quite a mozzarella rainstorm over that pizza. Finally, we put it back on the grill until the bottom was golden and the cheese melted.

It was so good, we ate the whole thing. The crust was crispy and chewy, the tomatoes were intensely sweet, the gooey cheese and aromatic pesto were, well, . . . gooey and aromatic. Plus a simple green salad on the side. And we made italian cream sodas with seltzer, torani syrup, and a dash of half & half for a special treat. It's so much more fun when we cook together.

AND, Clay told me that if we had TJ's pizza dough in the fridge all the time, I could just call him and say, "Hey, I'm busy making pottery, can you make a pizza for dinner?" And he could do it. Now THAT sounds dreamy. And worth 99 cents!