From My Point of View: On Family and Pizza

Family and Pizza...these are a few of my favorite things. :)

I'll get to the pizza in a minute, but first a quick update. Life has been rather busy lately! Whew! I had the privilege recently to speak in a Pastor's wives conference. There was a group of about 15 pastor's wives that came and we had a wonderful time of fellowship around the Word of God. I enjoyed getting to know some of the ladies better. Public speaking isn't my thing, but the Lord gave grace and wisdom and I'm so thankful for that.

I have enjoyed discipleship opportunities. Freda comes up each Tuesday after to school to go through our discipleship course, The Spiritual Growth Series.

My husband wrote this course several years ago and it has been such a helpful resource. Freda is really growing and she has a real burden for the salvation of her entire family. Pray along with us that we can see her family come to Christ. I am also meeting with Anita each Thursday evening after our midweek Bible study here in Bambili. Anita came to me a few Sundays ago expressing concern about her salvation. After some council she expressed to me that she'd already made a decision for Christ and so we went over some scripture about her security in Christ. I encouraged her to go through the Spiritual growth series as well and so we have started. I'm excited to see the Word of God change Anita.

Our annual missionary family camp is over and we had a wonderful week of fellowship with likeminded missionaries here in Sabga, Cameroon. Pastor Don Barth came from the states to speak to us. My responsibility each year for camp is the organization of the meals. Each missionary lady takes charge of one meal, and I don't do a lot, but I do create a schedule and try to make sure it runs smoothly. We also do a lot of the shopping for the food supplies for the week.

I always schedule my meal for the first night at camp...Monday supper. About three years ago we bought a gas grill off of a missionary family that was leaving Cameroon. I somehow stumbled onto a Pizza recipe created for the grill and our family fell in love. I was adventurous one year and made these grilled, personal pizzas for family camp and since then I've been doing it every year. This was year three. I take my grill up there and start cooking about two hours before meal time and everyone gets their own little pizza.

Since this recipe is such a hit in our family I thought I would share it with you! I have had a lot of people ask me how to cook pizza on the grill. The blog I found had pictures and all of the information, but I still was a bit nervous. I thought I would add some video clips so you can see exactly how I do it. If a picture is worth a thousand words, than a video is worth a million. :) Hopefully it will be helpful.

First thing I do is make my dough. I do this in my bread machine and here is my recipe:
2 c. water
1 TB olive oil
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
5 c. flour
1 TB yeast
Put all of your ingredients in the pan in that order, set it to dough cycle and let it work its magic. :)

This recipe makes 8 personal pizzas for our family. While the machine is working I make my own sauce. I take two packets of tomato paste, which is about the equivalent to two small cans. I add water until it is pizza sauce consistency and season with garlic salt and italian seasoning. Very simple, but we love it. I shred my cheese and cut up my veggies. When my dough is done, I take it out and divide it into 8 evenish pieces and roll them out into personal pan size.

I take all my goodies to the grill. Before placing the dough on the grill I brush one side with olive oil and sprinkle some garlic salt on it (we love garlic salt!).

Make sure your grill is nice and hot, and flip your dough, oil side down onto the grill. Here is a quick little video clip so that you can see it in action.

Once you get your dough on there (excuse the dirty grill...I do live in Africa), close that lid and patiently let it cook for a couple minutes. My grill runs hot, so the timing probably depends on the grill, but once you notice your dough puff up and look dry and cooked, not wet and raw, it is time to brush the top with oil and flip the dough. This is what it should look like.

Here is a little clip of me flipping the dough again (You can't say I didn't explain this process very clearly!) :)

Once you have brushed that side with oil and flipped it, now it is time to top your personal pizza. Let your creativity soar with the possibilities. Our standard toppings are sausage, pepperoni, onions, tomatoes, green peppers and green olives. Another favorite is chicken alfredo pizza. I would love to get some frank's hot sauce out here and try some buffalo chicken pizza. The options are almost endless. Close the lid and let your topped pizzas cook a couple more minutes so the dough can finish cooking and all the cheese can melt.

The finished product is a tender, flavorful crust with ooey, gooey cheese and yummy toppings. It will be like a flavor explosion in your mouth! So much better than pizza in the oven...trust me!

What can I say...we are a pizza loving family. Some people have Taco Tuesday, we have Pizza Friday. it is just our family tradition. We rarely stray from cooking our pizza on the grill, but occasionally we do something different. For family day two weeks ago we didn't have a gas bottle hooked up to the grill so we made our own personal pizzas and baked them in the oven. The kids had fun creating a unique pizza...some with faces, others in shapes.