Pizza comes in various incarnations: the traditional round, square or rectangular, with stuffed crust, with deep crust, etc. It’s all good, am I right?
Recently, out of boredom though, and with a blob of dough staring at me from my cutting board, I decided to amuse myself and my
Grilled Pizza in a Stick. You can bake them in the oven too if you don’t want grill marks.
kids with another variation – pizza sticks. Just to go all crazy about it, I grilled them!
Because I made this up, I’m not going to give you an exact recipe. I’ll leave it up to you to add your own variations in toppings and sauces.
Step 1:
Roll out pizza dough into a big rectangle. Using a pizza cutter, cut long strips 3-4 inches wide.
Step 2:
Using a pastry brush or a small spoon, spread pizza sauce* on one half of the dough strip being careful to leave borders clear.
* When sauce and fillings are going to be hidden like this, it’s a great time to smuggle pureed spinach in the sauce or finely-diced veggies.
Step 3:
Add your toppings such as sausage or pepperoni (I took a clean kitchen scissors to cut stacks of pepperoni slices into quarters to fit better along the dough).
Add cheese. Again, be sure to keep boarders clear in preparation for the next step.
Step 4:
Fold the plain half of the dough over the filled part. Seal the edges.
Pizza in a stick, in the works. Not so pretty but really tasty!
Step 5:
Brush a little olive oil over the top of the pizza sticks, keeping some extra around for when you cook them.
Step 6:
Bake the pizza sticks on a sheet pan at 425 degrees for about 7-12 minutes or until the crust is golden brown. Or, you can grill the sticks, as I did to avoid heating up the already-hot house during the summer. If you do this, you get nifty grill marks (see photo). When grilling, turn the sticks over part-way through and brush more olive oil on the other side. Grill 5-8 minutes per side or until golden brown.
Step 7:
Serve them with or without pizza dipping sauce but beware, they are really hot inside.
Not only do these make an easy meal on a busy school night, but since kids love to take cold pizza to school, this is a space-saving way to give them what they want while providing a great conversation topic around the lunchroom table, such as, “Dude, your mom must have been really bored with pizza-making when she came up with those righteous sticks!” – or at least that’s what I’m hoping for.
everyonearoundthetable.com 