Margherita Pizza

This past Saturday I decided on a whim to try my hand at margherita pizza. I’ve eaten many delicious slices of this across the globe, but have never tried my hand at making it myself.

Suggested total time: 30 minutes
Recipe: Quick Pizza Margherita (via www.myrecipes.com)
Ingredients:

• 1 (10-ounce) can refrigerated pizza crust dough
• Cooking spray
• 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil, divided
• 1 garlic clove, halved
• 5 plum tomatoes, thinly sliced (about 3/4 pound)
• 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded fresh mozzarella cheese
• 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced fresh basil
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 400°. Unroll crust dough onto a baking sheet coated with cooking spray; pat into a 13 x 11-inch rectangle. Bake at 400° for 8 minutes. Remove crust from oven, and brush with 1/2 teaspoon oil. Rub crust with cut sides of garlic. Arrange tomato slices on crust, leaving a 1/2-inch border; sprinkle evenly with cheese. Bake at 400° for 12 minutes or until cheese melts and crust is golden. Combine 1/2 teaspoon oil and vinegar, stirring with a whisk. Sprinkle pizza evenly with sliced basil, salt, and pepper. Drizzle the vinegar mixture evenly over the pizza. Cut pizza into 8 pieces.

I have to admit: I did not follow the recipe to a “t”. I used an add water-only pizza crust mix that was available at my local grocery store. And I accidently used ground cloves instead of garlic cloves on the edges of the pizza - it tasted fine. I did pick two large and fresh tomatoes from my garden to use. Instead of just the mozzarella cheese, I opted for an Italian blend that I thought might be even tastier. My local grocery store doesn’t carry balsamic vinegar so I went with Regina’s Red Cooking Wine as my alternative. Where the recipe called for 1/8 salt & black pepper; I chose to do a 1/4 teaspoon mixture of ground black pepper and parsley flakes with a dash of salt. I also could not find fresh basil leaves at my local grocery store so I used dried sweet basil leaves at about 1/4 teaspoon.

In actuality it took longer to make the pizza than 30 minutes. It took longer to make the dough and the dough decided to not be cooperative when I was trying to spread it out on the pan. Also, pizza needed to cook longer in the oven the second time. I would say that the total time was closer to an hour.

Photo of the finished meal:


Next week’s meal: Linguine with Gorgonzola, Potatoes, Green Beans & Sage