Take pizza for example. I do love using my pizza stone in the oven, but there’s just something about grilling a pizza in the summer. Might be the satisfying grill marks… who knows. In any case, I grilled some pizza the other day.

Did I mention that we have a Weber grill? Of course we do! We’re the Webers, it wouldn’t make sense for us to have any other brand of grill.

I used the dough hook on my KitchenAid Pro stand mixer to make my own dough. You can of course buy pre-made pizza dough in the grocery store, but I find it much more satisfying to make my own. I’ll take any opportunity to make something from scratch and watch yeast work its magic (bread, yogurt, beer…).

Shape the dough however you like. I made mine oblong to fit better on our grill, but circles rock too. If you’re unfamiliar with the technique of shaping pizza dough, don’t worry — it’s actually pretty simple. There’s a couple of ways to do it, but here’s what I do. I ball up the risen dough into a sphere and flatten it into a small disc in my hands. Then, I put my (floured) fists underneath the dough and stretch it using my thumbs around the edge of the disc. Gravity will take care of most of the stretching, so just be gentle and patient as you keep turning the dough on your fists to stretch it out.

Gently flop the raw dough straight onto your preheated grill. You’ll want to use low heat unless you like burnt pizza (I have definitely made this mistake). Close the lid on the grill and let it cook for a couple of minutes. When it starts to form bubbles on the top, check the bottom of the dough for grill marks. If it’s looking good, remove the dough from the grill and place it on a floured surface, raw side down.

At this point, you’ll add your toppings right on top of the grill marks. For this pizza, I made a roasted red pepper sauce, topped with sautéed shrimp, green bell peppers, and banana peppers grown in our garden. Cheese it however you wish (I used mozzarella, Parmesan, and crumbled feta).

Gently slide the pizza back onto the grill (this is when you’ll be happy you put the dough on a floured surface). Close the lid and let it cook for another 15 minutes or so, until the cheese is all lovely and melted. When I took mine off the grill, I garnished it with some parsley from our Aerogarden for some extra freshness.

Cut it up and eat it. It’s gonna be awesome. Trust me. My pizza had a nice slow-burn going on from the banana peppers, so I paired it with a bright, citrusy IPA. (The aggressive hopping in IPAs can stand up to spicy foods.)

Totally freakin’ awesome.