Mini Grilled Pizzas with Shrimp & Roasted Red Pepper Pesto Recipe

Scroll all the way to the bottom to enter your recipe. Click on the button that says, “Add your link”. Be sure to read the rules halfway down. It’s okay to use a post that’s already on your blog – no need to re-invent the wheel.

Have you been firing up those grills (see my How-to on the subject) and pulling out your favorite summer barbecue recipes? Marla of Family Fresh Cooking and I can’t wait to see what you are going to share with us during our six-week Get Grillin’ event. The theme for this week is appetizers. Please scroll down to find more information on entering your recipes. In the meantime, you can whip some of these mini grilled pizzas, topped with shrimp, roasted red pepper pesto, feta cheese and cilantro. Remember, you recipes don’t have to be made on the grill. As long as they are summer barbecue-friendly, they are eligible. Next week’s theme will be side dishes, so put on your thinking caps.

Thanks to our sponsors, Ile de France Cheese, Rösle, Emile Henry, Rouxbe and ManPans, we have some fabulous prizes to give away each week . Scroll down to find out about this week’s giveaway. Remember, you have to enter a recipe to be eligible for the giveaway.

The recipe:

The pesto:

Place roasted red bell peppers in the bowl of a food processor. Add slivered almonds, garlic, cilantro, Parmesan cheese, and lime juice. Pulse until combined. While the food processor is running, slowly pour in olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Set the pesto aside.

The Pizzas:

Heat olive in a large skillet over high heat. Add the shrimp, sprinkle them with salt, and sear very briefly. The shrimp should sear about 30 seconds per side. Remove the shrimp from the skillet and set aside.

Preheat grill to medium-high.

Using a golf-sized piece of dough for each pizza, roll the dough into 4-inch rounds. Lay them on a flour-covered cutting board until you’re ready to use them.

Before the pizzas go on the grill, be sure to have all of your ingredients ready and sitting right beside the barbecue.

Place the pizza dough rounds on the grill. Depending on the size of your grill, you may have to do this in two batches. Close the lid and grill for about 2 minutes, or until the dough is puffed and there are grill marks on the bottom of each round.

Flip the rounds and press down slightly with the back of a metal spatula to get rid of some of the air inside the dough. Quickly spread 1 tablespoon pesto, 2 shrimp and 1 tablespoon feta cheese one each pizza.

Close the lid and grill until the cheese starts to melt, about 3 more minutes. Remove from the grill and let the pizzas sit for about 5 minutes so that the crust absorbs the olive oil released from the pesto. Garnish with chopped cilantro. Serve.

Entering Get Grillin’:

This week’s theme is appetizers. Remember, your recipes do not have to be made on the grill. Any backyard barbecue-appropriate recipe will do. Here’s what you need to do:

1) Get busy grilling and post your recipe on your blog. For each week’s theme, you can enter up to 3 recipes. Each recipe post is counted as a separate entry for a chance to win a great prize from one of our sponsors. It is fine to use recipes that are previously posted on your blog, as long as you add the info in 3).

If you don’t have a blog, that’s okay. Just leave your recipe in the comments section of our themed post (i.e., on the first day of the theme week). Just do so on either Marla’s or my blog, not both.

2) During the theme week, add the link to your grilling post to the widget on either Family Fresh Cooking or Cookin’ Canuck. You only need to add it on one site, but it will show up on both. Cool, huh? Scroll to the bottom of this post to find the widget.

3) Somewhere in your post, please include the following “Get Grillin’ with Family Fresh Cooking and Cookin’ Canuck, sponsored by Ile de France Cheese, Rösle, Emile Henry, Rouxbe and ManPans.” This must be included for a chance to win the prize of the week.

The giveaway:

Rouxbe Online Video Cooking School is giving away a one-year membership (value $240 USD) to their online cooking school. The quality of Rouxbe’s content is absolutely unparalleled. What does the membership include? There are 70+ online video cooking lessons, hundreds of instructional video recipes, 1000+ close-up, step-by-step videos and personalized feedback from Rouxbe chefs. Really, it can’t be beat.

For a chance to win the Rouxbe membership, enter your recipe using the recipe link widget. If you don’t have a blog, then enter your recipe in the comments section. Read below for instructions on earning extra entries.

This giveaway is open to U.S. residents and will be open until Sunday, June 12 at 5pm PST.

The winner will be chosen using a random number generator and will be notified via email, so please make sure your email address is correct. You will have 48 hours to respond to me, or a new winner will be chosen.

To earn additional entries (you can only do so if you have entered a recipe), leave separate comments for each of the steps listed below. If you don’t leave separate comments for each step, the number generator will not count them as separate entries.

1. Follow Rouxbe on Twitter and re-tweet the giveaway, being sure to include my Twitter handle (@cookincanuck). Here’s a sample tweet you could use:

#GetGrillin with @MarlaMeridith & @cookincanuck. Share your appetizer recipes for a chance to win a membership to @ROUXBE. http://bit.ly/lfXRDo

2. Follow @cookincanuck on Twitter.

3. Follow @MarlaMeridith on Twitter.

4. Copy and paste our Get Grillin’ Badge into your sidebar or blog post.

You can stay in touch with Rouxbe on Facebook too.

We can’t wait to see your recipes!

Mini Grilled Pizzas with Shrimp & Roasted Red Pepper Pesto

Pesto:
2 roasted red peppers, chopped (how to roast your own peppers)
3 tbsp slivered almonds, toasted
1 garlic clove, chopped
1/3 cup chopped cilantro
3 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
1 1/2 tsp freshly-squeezed lime juice
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Pizza:
1 recipe of my homemade pizza dough, or store-bought dough
24 medium shrimp, peeled & deveined
1 tsp kosher salt
3/4 cup roasted red pepper pesto
3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/3 cup chopped cilantro

The pesto:
Place roasted red bell peppers in the bowl of a food processor. Add slivered almonds, garlic, cilantro, Parmesan cheese, and lime juice. Pulse until combined. While the food processor is running, slowly pour in olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Set the pesto aside.

Pizza:
Heat 1 tbsp olive in a large skillet over high heat. Add the shrimp, sprinkle them with salt, and sear very briefly. The shrimp should sear about 30 seconds per side. Remove the shrimp from the skillet and set aside.

Preheat grill to medium-high.

Using a golf-sized piece of dough for each pizza, roll the dough into 4-inch rounds. Lay them on a flour-covered cutting board until you’re ready to use them.

Before the pizzas go on the grill, be sure to have all of your ingredients ready and sitting right beside the barbecue.

Place the pizza dough rounds on the grill. Depending on the size of your grill, you may have to do this in two batches. Close the lid and grill for about 2 minutes, or until the dough is puffed and there are grill marks on the bottom of each round.

Flip the rounds and press down slightly with the back of a metal spatula to get rid of some of the air inside the dough. Quickly spread 1 tablespoon pesto, 2 shrimp and 1 tablespoon feta cheese one each pizza.

Close the lid and grill until the cheese melts, about 3 more minutes. Remove from the grill and let the pizzas sit for about 5 minutes so that the crust absorbs the olive oil released from the pesto. Garnish with chopped cilantro. Serve.

Makes 12 mini pizzas.

Printable recipe