Pizza on the grill

Yep, you heard right – pizza cooked outside, directly on the gas grill grids, no stone or cookie sheet.  Let me tell you, it’s fabulous, delicious and a different social thing to do with family or when you have friends over.  By some miracle, the crust doesn't stick!  Last night was the 6^th time I’ve done it; the crust was perfectly crisp and the toppings gooey and melty and flavourful and simply the yummiest!

I’ve discovered Fleishmann’s Pizza Crust Fast and Easy yeast.   I’ve been using the recipe on the pouch at the back, starting with one cup of all purpose flour, and then adding the yeast, salt, sugar, oil and warm water.  I mix it up quickly and add enough flour so that it’s not sticky.  Then I knead it for a couple of minutes.  This is where I detour from the pouch recipe {which is not necessary, but I'm having better results doing this the last 2 times.}  I divide the dough into 2 balls per recipe, and let them rise for an hour in a floured mixing bowl with plastic wrap over and a towel to keep it draft free.  Then it goes in a warm place until it’s time to have the fun.

The toppings take a while to assemble.  Decide on a base sauce – a tomato base or a pesto base…last night my friend just brushed olive oil on hers, which was simple but looked really good too. Caramelized onions are something that hands down, simply make a yummy pizza, and lots of garlic too – so I definitely have those as a topping.  Sometimes I lightly cook mushrooms, other times I have them sliced and raw.  Gosh – really it’s whatever floats your boat.  I’m not much of a meat eater, so shrimp or prosciutto or chicken - that would be up to you.  Here are some ideas:  olives, buffalo mozzarella, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, torn fresh basil leaves, shredded cheese.

When you’re almost ready to cook, it's time to take the dough and flatten it out into personal pizzas.  I get 2 out of each pouch of yeast/recipe.  They are bigger than a dinner plate, so about 12 inches I’d say.  You’ll know how big to make them as you can’t make holes in the dough by stretching it too much {or else you’ll have a difficult time – that’s why!}  Place each ‘pizza’ on a plate or cookie sheet, and brush the top with oil.  This will be the side that you put face down towards the flame on the grill.

When the grill is ready {last night it was set on low, said 500°F and was perfect}, carefully turn the blank pizzas over onto the grill.  They may lose their shape. Yep, that’s just the way it goes.  With grilled pizza, they aren’t all round, and you just gotta get over it!  Close the top of the grill but don’t go away!  Peek in after 5 mins and lift up a corner.  You definitely don’t want to char your pizza at this point.  When it’s nicely browned, use a spatula – a nice big one really does help  – transfer to a plate and you’re ready to put the toppings on.  If you’re making more than 2, go ahead and start the other pizza’s on the grill.

Sauce goes on the cooked side, then cheeses and then toppings.  When the grill is  ready for these to cook, using your spatula, transfer them, close the lid and bake for about 5 to 10 minutes.  It varies, but do watch like a hawk.  

Your family and guests will have their own ideas of how to do it, and how much they like to pile on, and this is definitely the fun for them.  I love watching them enjoy the novelty of making their dinner....and then eating the results. 

I just remembered this!
                                 - have yeast will travel!


Last year I took some pizza yeast with me to South Africa when I knew I'd be staying in a self catering B&B with Shannon, my daughter.  We were in the gorgeous Golden Gate National Park's traditional Basotho village, staying in a little mud hut, and having a blast waking up to a host of zebra grazing down below us on a verdant pasture.  One night we had delicious pizzas, cooked over the coals that Shannon artfully prepared from firewood on a very windy night.  We waited for what seemed like utter ages for the coals to "cool down", and even so, the crust got a bit charred.  {Okay, it was bloody black on the bottom waiting for the cheese to melt!}  We enjoyed them and it was memorable mother-daughter evening with a daughter who lives very far away!

Quilts and tea

Some of the most superb ladies in town have invited me to join them at their weekly quilter's meeting.  I feel both honored and humbled.

New to the States and a new bride with not much social outlet living in Miami, and completely self-taught, I made my first quilt in the seventies, entered it into a national magazine contest and won as finalist.  I have never again attempted such a large quilting undertaking, but over the years, I've dabbled in a few baby quilts, some crazy quilt vests, pieced duvet covers, and more, including a class here and there.  I would not, however, classify myself as an expert quilter by any stretch of the imagination and even calling myself a quilter is probably stretching it.  So that is part of why I feel humbled by this group.

Yet, it's their sheer generosity of time and spirit that is really moving and humbling.  They make quilts - yes, great big quilts with hours and hours of love stitched into them - for so many needy causes.  For friends who have babies and grandbabies, for friends who have trials and tribulations and for sheer acquaintances who have sickness and sadness in their lives.

The evening progresses with laughter, sharing, caring, helping each other pin and piece, "show and share", talk about fabrics, quilting techniques and art styles.  And get this...there are lashings of hot tea and warm Irish soda bread.  Yum!  It's such an honor to spend time with them.

Tina

My mom moved into the nursing home last weekend.  She has made the adjustment well and sounds so happy!  Do you know how blessed that makes a daughter 8,000 miles away feel?  

She’s had a warm welcome by the residents.  She likes her room with her new closets and curtains. She has some new "things" to excite her, like a duvet cover and fluffy sets of towels – the sorts of things that delight most women, obviously at any age :)  My sister-in-law helped her think through taking some of the old familiar things too – the important ones – for comfort and familiarity.  The nursing home is right across the street from the library with a pedestrian crossing virtually from door to door.  An avid reader, Mom has already been to the library to check out a book. Sunday, she was picked up for church and asked by the minister to stand up. I hope and pray that, here, in the very golden time of her life, she has a fair span of golden days to enjoy with good health and energy and that she has courage to make golden opportunities of everything she can.  I phone her almost every day, so I’ll keep nudging her with enthusiasm and praise.

But let me tell you about Tina! 

After my dad died 4 years ago, a sweet little fox terrier on the farm suddenly adopted my mom.  It’s just what she needed in her time of deep loneliness and grief – a furry companion to cuddle, to lie with her when she napped and to follow wherever she went like a quick spotted shadow.  In the mornings, when Tina is let out of the kitchen, the first thing she did was to dash to my mom’s cottage, push the door open and jump on her bed!  I’ve heard Mom tenderly say, “Feel her little ears – they are like velvet!” and “Doesn’t she have the sweetest face you’ve ever seen?”  This has been the most precious love relationship which I have relished seeing on my visits over there.   Needless to say, I knew that Mom would be devastated to part from her little doggie when she left last week.  The plan is that once a month she will go back to the farm for a long weekend, and she's already talking about  her first visit, just so she can see Tina family.

When I was there, I had the idea to take pics of Tina so I could frame one and send it over for the new room.  Last week when I was rootling around in my sewing room, I ran across some June Tailor Sew-In Colorfast Fabric Sheets for an inkjet printer, and so my cogs started turning and instead a pillow idea started manifesting.   {You can never have enough pillows, right?}

I made a collage, printed it in black and white first – good idea because the 8.5x11 cut off the edges so I printed the 8x10 format on the fabric, sending off a breath prayer as it went through,  and yesss! it came out looking perfect.  Just a minor wrinkle that I was able to work around.  Following the instructions, I heat set the ink, and then washed and dried the print.  I sewed a border around the collage, log cabin style, and made some piping.  I'm not crazy about how busy it looks with the quilted border beside the collage.  If I had to do it over again, I'd definitely just use one fabric and a contrasting piping. Oh well!

It will be far cheaper for me to just send over the cover in a padded envelope and not make it into a pillow.  It so happens that there’s a material shop on the same street as my mom’s nursing home, so she can have a little activity to go over there and ask them make an insert.  

I’d so love to be a fly on the wall when she opens her present and sees Tina on the pillow.  {I hope it’s a comfort and not sad-making.}

I loved doing the photo collage. I've been doing some thinking! Since she doesn't have many surfaces in her room and therefore didn't take many photos, I may just have to make my mom a book tote bag and include grandchildren and great-grandchildren’s photos on it…like a brag bag.  That will be for another time.  She has her 88^th birthday coming up in October, but I need to do better about mailing it in plenty of time….

More on yogurt cheese

As I wrote recently, I’m back into yogurt making and yes, more yogurt cheese making.  This time around I’m loving the results more than I ever remember.  Last weekend I needed to make an appetiser so I made a smoked salmon pâté.  I didn't have a recipe, but I remembered how we used to make smoked snoek pâté in Cape Town, and I basically did the same thing, except I used yogurt cheese in place of the creamy cottage cheese we use there. 

This is how I made the pâté :  I flaked some wonderful Norwegian smoked salmon from Costco, mixed it with wasabi, a squeeze of lemon juice and dumped in all the yogurt cheese* I had on hand.  *{made with 2 containers of yogurt}  To serve it, I formed it into a little patty, dusted it with black pepper and served it with baguette.  It was very good and so easy.  I forgot to take a photo of the finished product but the next day for lunch I made myself an open face sandwich with avocado. Yum-yum-yum!

I baked banana bread and discovered how divine it is with yogurt cheese.  Ditto on baked potatoes - it has a sour cream taste, but it's so creamy and yummy.

Almost every weekday I take fruit to work for lunch and a container of home made yogurt. I’ve been reveling in summer’s bounty – peaches, berries, and cantaloupe with yogurt is a match made in heaven.  {Just thinking out loud here, but melon, yogurt cheese and prosciutto would be extremely light and summery and....mwah!}