Grilled Salad Pizza and Grilled Sausage Pizza!!

The summer is officially winding down, which is absolutely not okay, seeing as Michael and I feel that we have barely been able to enjoy it at all. However we did receive sweet vacay time last week, this is the reason why we have been MIA.

My family has a cabin in sequoia national forest, about 4 hours from Los Angeles, with a view of mountains, trees, and the Tule river; it is one of my favorite places to go in the whole world. This last time we decided to try some really healthy eating, and in the meantime also slide in a lil grilled pizza.

This recipe is so simple, and because we wanted it to be camping and BBQing friendly, we used a simple dough mix and added our favorite toppings. We made a sausage, onion, and mushroom pizza with a light sauce, and a salad pizza. Enjoy these recipes, there is no way you will be disappointed.

*We used Auntie Annie’s mix, the kind that makes pretzel, it is also a bomb pizza dough mix.

Ingredients:

Dough mix or premade dough

Sausage Pizza:

1 cup crushed tomatoes

1 teaspoons dried oregano

1 teaspoon garlic salt

5 sweet Italian sausages

3 small green onions

½ cup sliced mushrooms

Salad pizza:

2 cups mixed lettuce

3 cloves garlic diced

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Pinch of salt



 

 

Before you do anything, if you need to mix your dough, do so now because dough needs about 40 minutes to rise. The actual cooking of the pizza goes by really quickly so it is important to create your mise en place and lay out everything first.

Start by slicing mushrooms, slicing onion, dicing garlic, and measuring your olive oil out. To create the sauce all you need to do is mix the diced tomatoes, oregano, and garlic salt in a small bowl.

Next because we don’t want any of the sausage to be served raw, in a sauté pan, break up your sausage links into small bits and cook until your sear it and it is almost completely cooked all the way through.

Now that we have everything prepped, get your grill started. Lay your coals out evenly because we don’t want just the middle to cook. Have low heat, otherwise the dough will burn before you have time to cook the middle (trust me I had REALLY doughy pizza the first time haha).

Maybe set up a little table by the BBQ  so that you have everything close by, and be sure that you have a paper towel or a brush to brush the olive oil on for the salad pizza.

Once the dough is ready, separate it into two different pizzas. Roll them out about a 1/4 inch thick, so not that thick, and put back in the fridge to let harden for about 5 minutes.

Now lets get grilling! Start with the salad pizza, because this one is good cold. Once the coals are ready, pull the pizza off the plate and lay on the BBQ. The pizza will instantly start to bubble, and you only want to cook for about 2-3 minutes, brush with olive oil trying not to pop the bubbles. Now flip, and brush more olive oil on, top with garlic, and a pinch of salt. Cook for another 3 minutes and pull off and let cool.

Now to cook the sausage pizza, cook first side of down then flip. Quickly put sauce on, then sprinkle evenly the sausage, mushroom, and onion, and then cover the BBQ with the lid. This lets the toppings cook a little while preventing the bottom from burning. Only do this for about 4-5 minutes, and then pull off.

*If you aren’t happy with how cooked the toppings are but the crust is cookes, put the pizza under a low broil in the oven for about 5-10 more minutes until the toppings are cooked more, even add a little olive oil to help. But watch it, you don’t want to burn it.

Finish up the salad pizza by adding the lettuce and the remainder of olive oil and balsamic vinegar and serve with the hot of the grill sausage pizza.

Happy pizza grillin!

Micro-green Farm to Table Salad

With Michael newly being instated as sous chef at A-Frame, part of his new repertoire is to be in contact with farmers from local farms in the Oxnard and Malibu. In honor of local farmers and the gorgeous harvest of the California summer we created this lovely and bright micro green and herbed salad with fresh vegetables topped with queso fresco. We hope you enjoy this salad and take a look at what your local farmers have to offer to you!

*There is no real measurement to this salad, except for dressing, but use your own judgment….you want a relatively even amount of vegetables.

Ingredients: serves 4-6
4 medium heirloom tomatoes
3 Persian cucumbers
3 small golden beets
2 small ears yellow corn
5 large leaves basil
2 large sprigs tarragon
2 cups micro-greens
2 large cloves garlic
3 tablespoons ponzu
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon salt
1 lemon
1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
½ cup queso fresco

 

Most of this salad is just prepping and cutting your ingredients. I created a mini buffet of sorts and put it together at will.

To start, clean all of your vegetables, and set out a few small bowl to place your vegetables in. Running the blade of a knife along the center of an ear of corn away from your body, remove all corn kernels. Next quarter and dice your cucumbers. Using a mandolin if you have one, slice beets paper thin, as thin as a chip. Then dice your tomatoes into pieces all the same size.

For the tarragon, pull all the leaves off by holding the top end of the little sprig and rubbing your finger in the opposite direction to pull leaves off, then chiffonade. To chiffonade all of your basil at once, lay the leaves on top of each other, roll them up tightly, and then slice from right to left. Mix tarragon and basil together.

In a large bowl pour an even amount of all of the chopped and cut vegetable together, and half of the tarragon basil mix.  Pour 1 Tablespoon of olive oil in, all of your black pepper, and ½ Tablespoon of salt, and stir and let sit for no less than 10 minutes.

To create your salad dressing, finely chop garlic and place in small bowl with remainder of salt and olive oil, the juice of one lemon, and the ponzu. Mix together. Pour ¾ of the dressing in the vegetables and mix together.

To assemble the salad, mix the rest of the basil mix with your micro greens and toss with the rest of the salad dressing a bit at a time. Be sure not to drown the greens, so if you feel it is too much dressing don’t use it all.

The best way to plate is to toss a small amount of green with a large spoonful of vegetables and a Tablespoon of queso fresco at a time, or just mix everything together at once!

Enjoy, and get to know what is growing in your neck of the woods.