Summer is here, and it is arguably the best season there is. Who doesn’t love spending time outdoors, drinking refreshing adult lemonades and soaking up some vitamin D? Better yet, who doesn’t love grilling and eating delicious food (while still watching that beach body of course)? Another thing that reminds me of summer is pizza parties. Yes I know, pizza will be enjoyed year round, so it may not technically be a summer thing… but grilled pizza sure is!!
Located here in the north side of Chicago is Bake425, a relatively new concept when it comes to pizza. While there are many options available for “take and bake” pizzas out there, this one stands out for many reasons. Bake 425 uses organic, locally sourced ingredients for their pizzas, bringing the farm to table concept to a new level. Many ingredients are locally sourced to provide the freshest flavors for you, as well as offer alternative benefits like reducing CO2 emissions. (FACT: Eating Bake425 pizza saves the environment.) Also, all pizzas, salads, and desserts are hand crafted for quality using family recipes and a bit of love. The crusts and sauces for the pies are made right in house, guaranteeing that with the hand selected toppings it will be the freshest pizza hands down.
Now let’s get to the good part. Bake425 has figured out a way to allow you to grill their pizzas, and all pies come with grilling instructions. If you’re anything like me, I have the hardest time trying to make fresh homemade pizzas for the grill (they usually just turn into oversized calzones.) Plus, it’s just a lot of work if you’re really looking for quality. I would much rather have a fresh-not-frozen pizza that I can pick up (or have delivered) and throw on the grill. And speaking from experience, theirs taste a lot better than mine ever have. I tried their Backyard BBQ and Seasonal pies. Both were so good I didn’t want to share. For more experienced grillmasters, the directions may not be necessary. However, the instructions provided made cooking simple enough that anyone with a grill can make a delicious pizza. Bake425 does an excellent job with making their pizzas easy to prepare, because they already come on a special higher heat parchment paper, and it makes for less clean up afterwards too. Now I do have a little advice when it comes to the directions. For grilling, it does mention to use a pizza stone, which I always recommend. But not everyone has a stone, so what do you do in that case? I made one of my pizzas using the weber grill, and our stone doesn’t fit. I had placed the pizza on a circular pizza pan (you know, the ones that has holes that you can purchase pretty inexpensive anywhere) with the parchment paper still attached and let it cook for about 8 minutes. Once the crust firmed up enough, then I removed the paper and let the pizza finish cooking on the pan an additional 5ish minutes. Still the same smoked/grilled quality as I got on a stone on the BGE, just a little different instructions.
Anyway! Moral of my rant: go try Bake425 pizzas. It’s worth it. Visit their website for more information, and let Man Meat BBQ know when you try it!
