You can only imagine Heather, Becci and I crammed into my breakfast nook on Sunday morning in our PJs with a stack of cookbooks,  a decades worth of culinary magazines, three iPhones with the latest food apps and a laptop trying to decide what to make for dinner. It comes to no surprise that we had ended up making two distinctly different pizzas. A couple of negotiations and “oos and aahs” later, we arrived at a grilled gorgonzola, caramelized onion and pear pizza and a grilled smoked mozzarella and asparagus pizza.

This was the first time grilling pizza was attempted on Mendenhall and I couldn’t have been more impressed with Chef Becci’s grilling skills! The best part of this meal was the small amount of preparation. With store-bought dough, it only took about 30 minutes to prep all the ingredients before we turned on the grill. A the results were pretty out of this world! There were many more “oos and aahs” at the table.

Grilled Gorgonzola, Caramelized Onion and Pear Pizza

Ingredients:

• half a store-bought pizza dough
• 2 large onions
• 1 ripe pear, sliced thin
• 1 large chunk blue cheese, crumbled
• 1/4 cup walnuts, toasted
• butter & olive oil
• sea salt

Assembly: Cut onions into thin strips and caramelize in half butter and half olive oil (I’d guess about 2 tablespoons) on very low heat. This will take some time but the pay off will be big – think almost candy like onions! Roll half of the dough out fairly thin. Brush with olive oil and throw on a grill about medium high. Cook until the bottom is fairly crispy. Turn the dough over on the grill and cover with blue cheese crumbles, onions, pear and walnuts. Cook with grill closed until the top is cooked through. We had to add ours to the oven to finish cooking – so stay calm and flexible. It will be worth the wait! We sprinkled sea salt on top and it made all the difference.