Grilled Pizza Party
Grilled pizza’s are one of our favorite summer meals, so it made sense that we would serve them at Gracie’s blessing dinner. When feeding a group I try to find a meal that everyone can customize to their tastes, and so we sat up a pizza bar with different sauces and toppings. A table in the driveway next to the grill held all the fixings and allowed easy access in and out of the house.
To decorate I cut sheets of coordinating paper (this was double sided paper from Close to My Heart) in about 1″ strips in varying lengths and sewed them together. For the twirly ones above the table I sewed down the middle and the banner hanging on the table I sewed along the top. They were a last minute idea that came together so fast and I love the fun colors.
To speed up the pizza building process we cooked all the crusts the day before–this way there was no standing around waiting for the crusts to cook. Family members brought toppings for the pizza, and we had quite the variety. Toppings included: marinara, alfredo sauce, and bbq sauce, cheese, ham, pepperoni, chicken, sausage, pineapple, onions, green peppers, olives, and mushrooms. Guests went through the line building their pizza and my husband manned the grill, warming them to make sure everyone’s cheese was melted. In the end we made 7 batches of my pizza dough to feed about 30 people (some had more than 1 pizza).
One of my favorite parts of the party were these signs sitting on the table. I thought it would be cute to call it “Gracie’s Grill” (the guest of honor) and have pizza ideas like you would find in a restaurant. I printed up instructions and different pizzas–each playing off our names–that went along with her birth announcements!
The guests had fun reading through and trying to match which pizza with who–it was tricky for some cousins that didn’t know middle names or the back story of a name.
What would you name your pizza and what would be on it? (My favorite is Helaman’s Warrior, although I’m Pretty Much Nik.)
What a fun idea. I made my first grilled pizza last week when both my sons and daughter in law were visiting. I’d heard of it, but never tried it. So we got all the fixin’s and did it. We had sausage, pepperoni, chicken sausage links, grilled onion from a previous grill meal the night before, grilled red bell pepper, grilled garlic, grilled zuchini, pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese. And I’m probably missing something else, but it turned out great. I guess I’d call mine ‘Family pizza’ since we all shared in picking the ingredients out and putting it together. It was great.
oh my goodness, this is such a cute idea! i thought those were pitas, but you made all the crusts? i have never grilled a pizza before, either…does a lot of sauce drip down? fascinating…super cute decorations and signs,too.