And It Was Good. Very, very good.

I love cooking, but I don't normally post about food.  It's just not what I want my blog to be about.  However, I've been practicing photographing food.  There's a knack to making food look appetizing on camera that I think, honestly, might make me better at taking portraits of people.
Also, I helped make the most amazing dinner, and I thought I would share with you.

Today, my family and I made pizza on the grill, a first for us.

Today was the first sticky, damp day of the year.  Mom made up a lovely lump of bread dough this afternoon, However, the moist closeness of the air sapped her of all will-power to add more heat to the air by baking said lump of dough.

So, at about 6:30, I decided that I would cook instead.  Mom had some fresh mozzarella she wanted to use up, so I decided that we should have pizza, and that further, it should be grilled.  That way we wouldn't add more heat to the house (our old, cranky oven leaks heat) and Dad and "E" could have fun with Dad's new fire pit.  Plus, it would be an adventure!

So I started roasting a red pepper over one of the burners, and batted my eyelashes at my papa so that he would start a fire for me.  For some reason, he was very easy to convince.  Probably it's because he got to play with fire, and then get tasty things afterward.

Normally, home-made pizza is kind of an arduous process, with all of the chopping and sautee-ing, just to get the ingredients together, and the bread dough to make as well.  However, this time, the pizza's just came together.  It helped a great deal that mom had made the bread dough ahead of time.  I was surprised. Even roasting the red pepper was easier than I remember. I love the taste of roasted red peppers, but I never do it because A. red peppers are expensive and B. the oil from the roasting usually splatters and makes a burnt mess all over the burner.  However today it was easy to clean up after, and was the key ingredient in the pizzas' amazing taste.

I don't have a precise recipe, but the ingredients are as follows:

lump bread dough (enough for 2 pizzas)
1 1/2 c fresh mozzarella
1 1/2 c fresh mozzarella, marinated in pesto
6 oz asiago cheese, finely grated
1 c generic spaghetti sauce, with fresh ground pepper and garlic powder added to taste
1 roasted red pepper, peel removed.
2 tomatos thinly slized (added to one pizza only)
16 oz italian sausage, cooked and crumbled.
grated black pepper to taste

It was such a lovely layering of smells as the sausage cooked and the pepper roasted, with an underlaying of the comforting smell of rising bread.  The sharp smell of garlic powder and black pepper.
Then outside, where the burning wood gradually grew stronger and took over the wet grass and lilly-of-the-valley scents that had been there before.  And then the cooking pizza bubbling away and mixing all the lovely cooking smells together.

For the first pizza, the fire was too hot.  It was the perfect height and shape for hamburgers, which made it cook the pizza bottom far too quickly.  Surprisingly, the coal black bottom didn't ruin the pizza.  Mostly, it just added crunch.

For the second pizza, we knocked the logs apart, letting them turn into a bed of coals, and covered the grill so that the top was cooked more evenly and infused with a wonderful, smoky flavor.
Perfect.

If you have tried this, or want to try this, let me know.  I would love to know how it turns out for you!