Naughty Tastebud: the perfect evening

We have had the most beautiful summer so far - the weather for one has been absolutely perfect. Seventy five degrees during the day then dropping in the evening to the perfect sleeping temperature - a cool breeze through the wide open window. We've enjoyed so many family and friend get togethers and the busyness of summer has finally seemed to slow down.

We had great plans to go to the Taste of Tremont today, but decided to have a relaxing yet productive day instead. We went to our favorite breakfast place (2 full breakfasts for $12 total, where can you find that anymore?), visited our garden and did lots of cooking to prepare for the week. We spent a few hours at the garden and were able to reap some of the rewards of all our hard work. I'll post a garden update soon, but let's just say we're going to have zucchini coming out of our ears pretty soon. Brad read somewhere that the more you pick the zucchini, the more it will produce, so we got quite a bit today (one measuring about 1o" too!). In light of our predicament, we decided to make a grilled zucchini pizza. Smitten Kitchen just happened to post a lemony zucchini goat cheese pizza recently so our problem was solved.

I have to admit, we were a bit nervous about how pizza dough on the grill would work, but we had absolutely no problems. The trick (obviously) is to make sure your grill is super hot, and I think having super thin crust helped too. We absolutely loved the results and are looking forward to trying many more pizzas this way.

grilled pizza with goat cheese & zucchini

for the topping:

1 lemon
4 ounces goat cheese, at room temperature
Few leaves of fresh basil, cut into thin slivers
1/2 medium yellow zucchini, sliced thin
1/2 medium green zucchini, sliced thin
Salt and pepper to taste

In a small bowl, stir together the goat cheese with the juice of half your lemon. Season it with salt and freshly ground pepper,

for the dough:

one envelope of active dry yeast
1/2 t sugar
2/3 C warm water (105-115 degrees)
2 C flour
1 t salt
1 t freshly ground pepper
2 T olive oil

In a medium bowl, combine the yeast, sugar and water. Stir briefly and let stand until foamy, 5-10 minutes. Add 2 cups of the flour, the salt, pepper and olive oil. Stir with fingers until the dough holds together. Transfer the douth to a lightly floured work surface and knead until smooth. 8-10 minutes. Shape into a ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl. Turn the ball to cover the surface with oil. Cover the bowl with a dish towel and set aside in a warm place until the dough doubles in size, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Punch down the dough in the bowl. Transfer to a llightly floured work surface and cut in half. Roll each piece to 1/8" thickness. Lightly brush both sides of dough with oil and place on a baking sheet.

Gently slide the crusts onto a hot grill and cook uncovered for 2-3 minutes. Don't worry if crust bubbles, you can pop them or they will deflate when you flip them. Transfer the crust to a baking sheet, grilled side facing up.

Spread half of the goat cheese mixture onto each crust, sprinkle with fresh basil and cover with the thinly sliced zucchini (we used peppers & onion on the other pizza). Transfer the pizzas back to the grill and cook for another 2-3 minutes, until grill marks are visible. Move the pizzas to the top rack and close the grill. Allow to bake for about 10 minutes, or until toppings are done to your liking.