It may come as no surprise to anyone, but we really dig on Asparagus around here. Even the baby loves it (no kidding). For that matter, even the cat loves it…go figure.

Since it’s been so hot here lately we’ve avoided cooking anything in the kitchen (because we’re not…hmmm, what’s the word? Oh, stupid) and have instead been either eating salad or grilling stuff. This time we had a bunch of Asparagus in fridge so we decided that it needed to go on the grill, too.

We prepared it like we usually do: Lemon Juice, Rosemary, Olive Oil, Kosher Salt & Pepper. One thing we did differently this time (in addition to grilling it) was to save the big bowl we’d tossed it with the marinade in. After it came off the grill we put it back in the bowl and tossed it again with the residual goody.

This turned out to be a very good idea and has now been entered into our imaginary book of culinary commandments as something that YE SHALL DO EVERY TIME FROM HERE UNTO ETERNITY (Amen), or some such. Does this make it twice-marinated? Pre-marinated and post-dressed? Dressinated? Yes, that’s it: Dressinated. You heard it here first…

Honestly, why don’t we save veggie marinades and re-toss after cooking every time? Is there some kind of rule or weird cultural norm that dictates that all marinade shall be dumped ASAP regardless of use? Nay, say we. Granted, whole ‘icky meat-juice marinade’ yuckiness should be tossed after the meat’s been removed but veggies are another matter entirely.

So, here it is: Grilled Lemon & Rosemary Dressinated Asparagus Spears.

Fixin’s:

• 1lb fresh Asparagus, tough ends snapped off
• Juice of half a Lemon
• 2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 2 Tbsp minced Rosemary
• Kosher Salt & Pepper to taste

Cook it:

• Preheat the grill to high
• In a gigantic bowl using tongs or your hands or whatever toss the Asparagus with all the other stuff
• Lay the Asparagus across the grill so they don’t all fall into the bottom…
• after about 2-3 minutes turn them all over or roll them around so they can cook on the other side, they should be golden and just a bit charred in spots
• Cook them for another couple of minutes and then pull them off and put them back into the big bowl.
• Toss them around again until they absorb the residual dressinade and then serve them to your very classy friends and family on fine china using crystal utensils. Or, alternatively, eat them right out of the bowl with your fingers while sitting on the deck drinking beer.

Mmmmmmmmm…

If there is a better way to cook a pizza than on the grill then we haven’t seen it (which is probably because a better way doesn’t actually exist and whoever says anything different is a dirty, filthy liar…right?) Just imagine it: the perfect crispy-on-the outside-and-soft-and-steamy-on-the-inside crust smothered in gooey bubbling Mozzarella and all of your favorite toppings. Now imagine it with an awesome slightly-smokey fresh-off-the-grill flavor. Now imagine that it only took about 5 minutes (seriously! 5 minutes!!) to cook. See where we’re going with this?

As usual we were a little late jumping on this particular culinary bandwagon but we’ve definitely been making up for lost time. Over the past couple of weeks there have been several incarnations of our take on Grilled Pizza – some vastly more successful than others.

The photo at the top there is of our first foray into the dark and murky world of pizza grilling. The extreme close-up is the by-product of the rather rustic (Julie’s word) condition of the crust which was oblong and generously charred. We stuck with the basic tomato sauce for this one and then added some leftover grilled chicken, fresh Basil, and mozzarella. We finished the whole thing off with a drizzle of Olive Oil. All rusticness aside it turned out pretty darn good, we thought.

The perfectly prepared number you see below here is from pizza grilling day #2, is the work of she-who-shall-forever-be-named-Grillmaster Julie, and handily put to shame the disastrous turn Gavin had taken at the grill just minutes before (oh, the shame…). We’ll spare you the gruesome story and gory photos of that particular train wreck.

This one here is topped with Olive Oil, Fresh Mozzarella, some shredded Rotisserie Chicken and some fresh Basil leaves. The crust we used is the fresh Spelt Pizza Dough from LifeSource Natural Foods. We chose it for no other reason than they were out of the regular kind. The Spelt variety was nummy but we discovered that we had to handle it very gently lest we poke numerous holes in it (hence the aforementioned train wreck).

While the recipes we found online varied in their levels of commitment to the dough-from-scratch scenario, we finally opted for the dough-from-the store scenario and found that the quality of our pizzas have suffered nary a bit. Yes, making dough from scratch is earthy and satisfying (and messy, and time-consuming) but – trust us on this – go to the store…buy the dough.

Also, you may be tempted after reading this recipe to augment the plain-sounding tomato sauce in one way or another which obviously is your prerogative. However, we would like to urge you to give it a go as we have suggested instead. The mashed up canned Italian Tomatoes are shockingly good and pack tons of bright, authentic tomatoey flavor. Divert your creative energies to the toppings and leave the sauce as a base flavor – you won’t regret it, we promise…

What you’ll need:

• Dough: 1 lb purchased fresh pizza dough – probably enough for 2 to 4 9inch pizzas.

• Sauce: Olive Oil, or 1 14oz can of Italian Plum Tomatoes (LifeSource again) dumped into a bowl and thorough mushed up with your hand, or all of the above…

• Toppings: Sliced Cooked Chicken, Fresh Mozzarella, Fresh Basil Leaves, Crushed Red Chili Flakes, Grated Parmesan, Roasted Veggies, Pepperoni, Salami, etc.

How to do it:

• Preheat your grill to medium-high heat. We have a gas grill so we just turned the knob to medium-high. Those of you with charcoal will have to fend for yourselves…
• On a generously floured surface (like a largish cutting board, something portable is a big help we found), separate the dough into grapefruit sized balls, dust them with flour, and wrap them with plastic wrap. Working with one dough ball at a time and using your fingers, a rolling pin, an empty wine bottle, etc. roll out the dough into a roughly 8 to 9 inch round and about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch thick. Make sure that there’s enough flour under the dough round to let it slide around a little so you can get it on the grill.
• Gather up all your ingredients and your prepared round and take them out to the grill.
• Without burning yourself – or setting the cutting board on fire- in one smooth motion slide the pizza dough off of the cutting board and onto the grill.
• Wait about a minute. The dough should just start to crisp up quickly and scorch a little around the edges. When that happens brush some Olive Oil on the top side and then flip it over.
• Working quickly add your sauce and toppings and then close the lid for about 2 minutes. Once the Mozzarella is all bubbly and wonderful the pizza is done. Use a spatula or two to transfer it to a pizza pan or another cutting board or whatever.

Thoughts:

We found that it was best to just work with one ball of dough at a time. We couldn’t find any reliable train-wreck-mitigating way to keep the prepared rounds from sticking to each other if you made them all at once and stacked them up. If there’s more than one of you working on this then your pizza buddy can start working on the next round while you’re tending the one on the fire.

Also, this is FANTASTIC party food: it’s really cheap to make, produces vast quantities of vittles, and is really, really fun. Plus, everyone is going to be standing around the grill oohing and ahhing anyway so you can easily put them to work rolling out dough and such.

Have fun!