Our family loves grilled pizza. Probably because of our long-standing tradition of grilling pizza before going out to Trick-or-Treat on Halloween. When the kids were growing up, all of their friends came to our house/neighborhood to go out for candy. Back then, purchasing pizza dough wasn’t even on my radar. Now, I’m lazy and simply pick up a package of pizza dough at Trader Joe’s and call it a day. But making fresh dough is fun and easy. The link for my dough can be found here.

In the recipe, I instruct you to place your stretched dough onto a pizza peel that is sprinkled with cornmeal. This makes it easy to slide the dough from the peel to the grill, preventing the dough from sticking. I made this pizza while in Chicago with Marissa. She did not have a pizza peel or cornmeal. So I made do with the back of a round baking sheet and crumbled saltines. By no means perfect or all easy but when you have to make do with what you have…

Season and Clean Your Grill Grates

Season your grates with half an onion

This works because onions contain sulfur compounds which is why you cry when cutting them. When heated, these compounds react with the bare metal to form a hard, non-stick sulfide layer.

Preheat the grill as hot as it will get.

Poke an onion half with a grilling fork and rub the onion vigorously along the grates. Apply some aggressive pressure.

Go over the grates several times. This will deliver non-stick grilling and easier release of grill debris and carbon.

This recipe goes along with this Tuesday’s Tip for the perfect burger. (Next Tuesday’s Tip will be more grilling tips. Have to keep a good theme going!) Many professional chefs and home cooks agree that Worcestershire sauce is key to a great burger. This is because Worcestershire sauce is effectively an ancient fish sauce (it contains fermented anchovies), so it adds a sort of interesting depth of flavor or that perfect umami that enhances the basic burger to a true classic burger.

Today’s tips are all about making the most fabulous at-home grilled burger possible. Later this week, I’ll share the burgers I made for Marissa and Jeff while in Chicago last month. The Illinois grilling season is quickly coming to a close, but here in Arizona, it lasts all year long. Chef John Ash was a frequent guest chef at Les Gourmettes Cooking School and one of my favorite teachers. All of the tips/secrets come from him.

*An update on my knee situation is at the bottom of the post. Many thanks for all of your emails, comments and texts of inquiry and concern. xoxo

As with anything new in life, there come new challenges, good or bad. The not too terrible challenge I have found with my new business, Harmony Boards, is having so much more cheeses, meats, fruits and vegetables to keep track of and prevent from over-ripening or going completely south.

Such was the inspiration for this recipe. I stay on top of the meats and cheeses since they represent the largest expenses. When buying, I look at each “sell” or “use by” date and calculate how much I have on hand and do my best not to overbuy.

The fruits and veggies present issues all their own. We’ve all experienced the joy of buying lovely-looking raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries and the anguish of having them turn on you in a matter of days. Sometimes, literally the next day! I have become basically terrified of berries. With so much energy focused on them, I sometimes lose track of the other produce in my refrigerators. Such was the case last Sunday with two varieties of plums that got pushed to the bottom of the fruit drawer. They needed to be used now. Not tomorrow or the next day but TODAY! I had a family pack of pork chops in the freezer so grilled chops and plums were now on the menu.

While you might think I’d have no interest in purchasing a different cheese than what I use on Harmony Boards, you’d be wrong. I love Halloumi cheese and knew it would pair perfectly with the pork and plums.  Halloumi is a uniquely perfect cheese for grilling. It’s made with sheep’s milk on the Greek island of Cyprus. It has a high melting point so it can easily be fried or grilled. I went to my local grocery store in search of Halloumi but wound up with something else instead. I discovered a similar grilling cheese called Juusto. It is made in Wisconsin in the way that Juustoleipä, also known as bread cheese, has been made in Finland for more than 200 years.

Here is an article all about the cheeses from Bon Appétit to learn more.  I am also using crushed Aleppo peppers on my finished dish. If you missed my mention of them previously, HERE is a link to that.

Oh, I almost forgot, I use Mama Mai’s S&P to season everything in this recipe. Honestly, most of the time, I use it to season everything, but I end up just writing “Salt and freshly ground black pepper” in my recipes. It is easier and universal to write that, but now you know the truth … I use Tram’s mama’s seasoning because I love it!

Thank you again for your kindness on Thursday! I will tell you some of the really wonderful things that I learned and experienced on the difficult trip… but I’m going to save that for tomorrow. I promised to get back to you with a recipe today and a recipe is what you shall have!

When I go to Costco, which you already know is quite often, I always go down the fresh fish aisle. Every now and then I spot whole fish, and although I’ve been tempted before, I’ve always passed them by for the fillets or shellfish. Not this time! I spotted packages of lovely pink snapper and decided to stop being lazy and just go for it.

Whole fish is not as convenient as fillets but I enjoyed the experience of grilling them. Not only did laziness hold me back before, but also Dave really dislikes finding bones in his fish. I’ve never really minded that because I remember my childhood camping days when we’d eat the fish the rest of the family caught.

I say “the rest of the family” because I have never caught a fish in my Life, even though I always threw out the hook and line with the rest of the family… Go Figure!  AND, how about that awesome photo of us camping! Doesn’t everyone look so happy?!

Left to right; Andy, Dad, Sloane, Mom, and me. My old brother, Dennis, must have been taking the picture.  Andy looks sad. My dad has a bit of a smirk. Sloane looks confused. And my mom looks seriously ticked off. Then there is smiling Linda, looking like she has a secret! I can’t imagine why else I would be smiling. I HATED camping. Did then, still do! Yeah, I must have had the goods on one of my siblings or been up to something, otherwise, I would have had a major pout on my face.

In this photo, my chic five year-old-self poses instead of fishing. My brother, Dennis, is to the right of me on the rocks in the stream. I have no idea who the two older boys in the photo are. But my tied-up shirt and shorts are super styling, I’d bet anything that the entire ensemble was pink.

The attitude and body language I am throwing off here are more in line with my feelings about camping. I can tell you exactly how I felt about being there – dread and despair! I’m guessing that I was 12 or 13 years old. This photo was taken at Hawley Lake, near the town of Pinetop in Arizona’s White Mountains. At least Andy looks super excited and happy to be there! Dennis looks desperate to be anywhere else in the world. Sloane’s rocking a fabulous shag haircut. Although, I really can’t make fun of Sloane’s hair when you look at the mop on my head. Oh, those were the days.

Anyhow, I remember that our parents would give us a penny for every fish bone we found while we carefully chewed our fish. We loved it and made a game and contest out of eating fish.

I, of course, would cheat, as I’m prone to do, and bite the bones I found in half when no one was looking, and usually, I would win! If you know how competitive I am, you’d think nothing of this. Not at all surprising!

We thought our parents were being fun, but it was actually to keep us from choking on fish bones. Smart parenting!

Back to Dave – I went through his serving with a fine-tooth comb, so he didn’t have to worry about any bones. Plus, I didn’t want to owe him any pennies. Although, you’ll notice that his plate doesn’t look as pretty as my nearly perfect fillet, pictured below.

You may cook the fish directly on the grill grates or use a grilling basket, as I did.

The grilling basket I have has a wooden handle, which is nice since it doesn’t get hot, but you have to be sure the wood portion is sticking out from the grill, to prevent it from burning.

When I shut the lid, it lifts the basket off the grates, so I stick a metal basket there to hold the lid up a little bit.

[Read more →]