Who doesn’t love pizza, right?! Yesterday evening we decided to host an impromptu pizza dinner party that included a festive outdoor tablescape and a pizza bar where our guests (family members) can enjoy creating their own pizza, using any of their favorite pizza toppings! This type of dinner is easy (no cooking involved, yes!) and is ideal for hosting outdoors during the spring and summer months. Having pizza cook on the grill is the next best thing to wood fired oven pizza. Add some bottles of red wine for the perfect pairing to your homemade pizza gathering!
Let’s start out with my outdoor tablescape…
I started by using a white tablecloth and folded it to resemble a table runner. Instead of flowers, I used greenery. You can easily clip some greenery from your own backyard or you can visit your local flower shop for some foliage. Believe it or not, the greenery you see on my table are actually two faux stems of greenery that I had stored away. They look so real and it was the perfect amount I needed! In order for the table ambiance to continue into the evening, I added clear cylinder vases that I used to house my pillar candles.
I needed something else to add to the centerpiece on the table that has color and that compliments my pizza theme…hum what can I use?? YES, fresh tomatoes!
I strategically placed around seven to eight small vine-ripened tomatoes and nestled them in between the greenery.
Next is the place setting. Rather than using a large dinner plate, I used a clay-colored salad plate and over top of it I placed a white dinner napkin that reads ‘Bon Apetit’ (French, I know but hey the French eat pizza too, no?) I purchased these dinner napkins a couple of years ago at a kitchen and home boutique in Rehoboth beach but I found similar ones, here. Also purchased years ago, are these cute mini cheese grater place card holders. I intended to use them one day whenever I decided to host an Italian-style pasta dinner but that never happened so I thought they were adorable to use for this table theme! I found similar ones, here.
To set the mood of your pizza dinner party, don’t forget your music playlist. On Pandora, I typed in the song title “That’s Amore” by Dean Martin and it played all the similar music to that song. Easy peasy!
The first thing to have when creating your pizza bar is to have your guests be welcomed with a chalkboard pizza sign to give them ideas of what type of homemade pizza they can make! Next, depending on the size of your outdoor buffet table (or folding table) and the amount of guests you will have, lay out brick oven pizza peels. Having these pizza peels is a convenient way for guests to prepare their pizza and slide it off onto the pizza stone insert in your outdoor grill.
Closer to when your guests arrive place bowls and containers filled with a variety of pizza toppings. There is a small amount of prep time for this part but it shouldn’t take no more than 30-minutes to have everything chopped and ready to go. The topping offerings we had were:
- basil
- tomatoes
- broccoli
- red onions
- pepperoni
- red and green peppers
- diced cooked ham
- pineapple
- cooked crumbled bacon
- fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced
- shredded four cheese blend
- marinara sauce (I prefered this over traditional pizza sauce. To add some more flavor to the marinara sauce, I minced a few fresh garlic cloves, heated a tablespoon of olive oil in a large pot, cooked the garlic cloves until soft and golden in color, poured the marinara sauce and added about a tablespoon of sugar. I let it simmer or 5 minutes before pouring it into a bowl).
- pizza crust (from our local Italian Market, we found an already-made pizza crust that was soooo good and crusty when grilled).
Buon appetio! You have an incredibly tasting pizza that took just minutes to cook on the grill!
Saluti! It was a great way to spend a Sunday evening with family!
-Images + Styling by Rose Angel Lopez
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