There is no doubt that my outdoor cooking game went up a few notches when my friends at Camp Chef and OutdoorCooking.com sent me their new All Purpose Pizza Stone for the Camp Chef Camp Oven. Anytime I bake a pizza outdoors is hero time for my boys, me being the hero of course. Pizza in a Dutch oven, pizza on the grill and now pizza in my Outdoor Camp Oven, making the Outdoor Camp Oven an indispensable camping item for me. With a two burner stove and oven combo, there is no limit to what I can cook outdoors with it, well … anything that fits in it I should say! I can just imagine someone suggesting I prepare a Moose shank or a full brisket – I can always try!

Camp Chefs new Pizza stone is cut to perfect dimensions to fit in the Outdoor Camp Oven 10.5″ x 14″ x 7/16″ and easily fitting the Professional Barbeque Grill Box for Camp Chef Three Burners stoves. Not only is it ready to cook with right out of the box, you can use it in your RV oven, kitchen oven and just about any charcoal or gas grill out there including the Camp Chef Smoke Vault!

Don’t let the name “Pizza Stone” limit your creativity, there are many more culinary creations that can go on a Pizza stone: bread, biscuits, pie crust deserts, and cookies for example.

First things first, you need to pre-heat your Outdoor Camp Oven and Pizza stone at the same time. Do not place a cold stone in a hot oven, it will crack or shatter. Pre-heat your pizza stone and oven for at least 30 minutes to get the Pizza stone fully heated.

I decided to try a new recipe for a Taco Pizza and of course, one of the boys favorites a Pepperoni Pizza.

This recipe was inspired from leftover tacos we had for dinner the other night. Not enough to feed the family again but plenty for a small pizza.

Taco Pizza Ingredients

Seasoned Taco meat

Diced onions

Diced tomatoes

Sharp Cheddar cheese

Shredded lettuce (after baking)

Next was the boys peperoni pizza. Pepperoni, cheese and sauce.

Cook time was 15 minutes for a 10″ pizza.

The overall results were fantastic! The Camp Chef Outdoor Camp Oven and the New All Purpose Pizza Stone did a great job. Each pizza had a crispy crust and the top ingredients were done, no mushy middle just a nice bubbly topping. The pizza stone is made of Cordierite Ceramic and will last a long time with proper care, which should only consist of an occasional warm water wash and a scraping of food bits from the surface. Over time your Pizza stone will darken with use and become increasingly nonstick.

So this was a big win for me and my family!

Related Reading:

Pizza: How to Make and Bake More Than 50 Delicious Homemade Pizzas

My Pizza: The Easy No-Knead Way to Make Spectacular Pizza at Home

Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza

Pizza on the Grill: 100 Feisty Fire-Roasted Recipes for Pizza & More

The Art of Pizza Making: Trade Secrets and Recipes

500 Pizzas & Flatbreads: The Only Pizza & Flatbread Compendium You'll Ever Need (500 Series Cookbooks)

Pizza: Award-Winning Pies for the Home Kitchen

• Leave a comment... (0)

Just recently, one of my YouTube “Cooking Everything Outdoors” show fans asked me if you can bake a pizza on the Camp Chef 18″ Smoke Vault. Honestly, at the time I had no idea. Camp Chef claims that the Smoke Vault can reach 500° F, so that should be hot enough to make a decent pizza and there is nothing better than grilling pizza in my book so I decided to put the question to a test and see if the Smoke Vault could produce a quality grilled pizza. Or smoked pizza if you choose to crank up the smoked pizza taste profile.

My first step was to find a pizza stone that fit my 18″ Smoke Vault (note: if you have the 24 ” model any size stone should fit).

Removing all of the racks but one, I placed my rectangular pizza (12″ x 15″) stone on the remaining rack which resulted in a perfect fit.

I did place the rack on top of the side holders so my pizza stone would sit on the rack and not the holders.

Next I added water to the water tray, then I preheated the Smoke Vault for 15 minutes on the high setting with no chips in the chip tray.

When the Smoke Vault was heated properly I placed my first test pizza on the stone.

Pepperoni for the boys, of course! This was a full 12″ pizza. I should have rolled out a rectangular shaped pizza, oh well!

Pepperoni Pizza browning up nicely after 10 minutes. I decided to rotate the pizza at this time to even out the browning (back to front). Another 5 minutes in the Smoke Vault and it was done. I chose not to add any wood chips on this pizza, not sure how the boys would have liked it.

Next it was time for the Margarita pizza. No chips for the first ten minutes (no reason for the timing, just testing at this point).

Here is a good photo of the Pizza stone placement in the Camp Chef Smoke Vault.

Here the smoke chips have been added to pizza cook at 10 minutes to finish with a smoky taste. I used hickory chips from Two Trees Products “Best of the West” brand.

Margarita pizza cooked in the Camp Chef 18″ Smoke Vault.

After this first round of tests, I will say that the Camp Chef 18″ Smoke Vault can and does cook beautiful pizzas. The crusts were done, the ingredients were cooked through, all in about 15 minutes. My next run will be with full smoke and trying to cook multiple pizzas. As a final note, the boys loved the pepperoni pizza and our Margarita pizza had a subtle smokiness that could only get better.

Have you cooked pizzas in your Smoke Vault? Let me know how you do it!

Related Reading:

Williams-Sonoma Collection: Grilling

The Prophets of Smoked Meat: A Journey Through Texas Barbecue

Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza

Backyard BBQ: The Art of Smokology

Pizza, Pigs, and Poetry: How to Write a Poem

Pizza on the Grill: 100 Feisty Fire-Roasted Recipes for Pizza & More

The Big Green Egg - A Manual on How to Grill, Smoke and BBQ (The Big Green Egg Manual)

• Leave a comment... (0)

Having some leftover Honey Mustard Grilled Chicken from the other day, lead to this grilled pizza recipe. Actually, a walk down the grocery aisles thinking about what to do with that single piece of Honey Mustard Grilled Chicken was the reason for this recipe. When I made it to the pizza sauce aisle, I realized exactly what had to be done to maximize that solo piece of chicken. However, I decided to make a White Alfredo sauce with asparagus and mushrooms to make it a bit more palatable. Homemade White Alfredo sauce on the grill to be exact, but that is a future article.

Using my Kettle Pizza accessory on my charcoal kettle grill make everything so much easier when grilling pizza. I am able to cook hot and fast as pizza is best cooked. I needed to cook my asparagus and mushrooms a bit before adding them to the pizza, otherwise they would be to tough to eat. At 700 degrees F the Pizza Kettle was a perfect fit for doing this chore.

A little extra virgin olive oil and my 8 inch cast iron skillet filled with sliced asparagus and mushrooms took all of four minutes to cook.

Once the asparagus and mushrooms were finished cooking in the skillet, I could make the pizza. I used pre-made whole-wheat dough for the pizza crust, homemade Alfredo sauce for my base; then added the grilled chicken, asparagus and mushrooms followed by a nice helping of mozzarella cheese. Then topped with a little more Alfredo sauce.

At approximately 700 degrees F the Kettle Pizza Accessory made fast work of this pizza! It took all of 8 minutes to cook partially because of the whole-wheat dough being a thicker crust. A thinner crusted pizza would have cooked in 5 minutes with just one spin in the kettle.

Did it taste good? Yes and that is a big YES! The homemade Alfredo sauce was just perfect, the ingredients and blended well with a crispy crust pizza base to balance it all out.

You can find the Kettle Pizza accessory at www.KettlePizza.com

Related Reading:

Flour Water Salt Yeast: The Fundamentals of Artisan Bread and Pizza

Pizza: Award-Winning Pies for the Home Kitchen

500 Pizzas & Flatbreads: The Only Pizza & Flatbread Compendium You'll Ever Need (500 Series Cookbooks)

The Art of Pizza Making: Trade Secrets and Recipes

Pizza on the Grill: 100 Feisty Fire-Roasted Recipes for Pizza & More

American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza

Pizza: More than 60 Recipes for Delicious Homemade Pizza

• Leave a comment... (1)