The Last Grill of The Season

Columbus Day weekend was warm and sunny and I figured it would be the last decent weekend for grilling outside.  I didn’t want to go crazy with the “last grill,” but there were a few things I wanted to make — again.  At the beginning of the summer, we attempted to cook a pizza on the grill and it turned out pretty well, but I thought we could do better.

So after making the dough, I heated up a pizza stone on the grill, then gently put the dough on top, waited for it to cook a bit on one side, and then actually flipped it like a crepe.  Only after that did I spoon on some sauce, basil from the garden, and this funky log of mozzarella that when I sliced it, it was in the shape of a ring.

A Funky Grilled Pizza

Because I flipped the pizza this time around, it had more of a rustic-look to it which I liked.  What I didn’t like was there was way too much sauce on the pie.  Guess what, we ate it anyway, and it was pretty good.

Since the pizza was technically our appetizer, I took it off the grill and we nibbled at it with a couple of cocktails and then I  got down to the business of cooking Cornish hens.  Now, I know Cornish hens are a bit of an old school kind of dish and frankly I actually had trouble finding a supermarket that still carried them but eventually I did find two small birds.

I stuffed the cavities with fresh celery leaves from the garden and then sprinkled the hens with fresh rosemary and a bunch of dried spices (notably oregano and paprika),  gave them a good dose of olive oil,  and put them on the grill.  Since I didn’t want these babies to char right away, yet be raw inside, I turned the flame down fairly low and spent the next 30 minutes or so moving them around.

While they looked pretty, the reality is they were completely tasteless! ( Sigh, so much for my Cornish hen fantasy.)  Luckily, the lovely roasted beet and arugula salad (with red onion and tomato, too!) I made to accompany those ucky hens saved the day.  In hindsight, sticking with the pizza and the salad would have been a much better option.

Lovely Roasted Yellow Beets, Arugula, Tomatoes