Pizza Margherita

Recipe name: Pizza Margherita
Source: Inspired by Cook's Encyclopedia of 30 Minute Cooking
Servings:2-3
Cookbook date: August 16

1 pizza crust, about 10-12 inches in diameter
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup chunky tomato sauce
5 oz mozzarella cheese
2 ripe tomatoes, thinly sliced
6-8 fresh basil leaves
2 tbsp freshly grated Parmesan cheese
ground black pepper

Tim here. Let me start by saying that the only thing that I used from the recipe above was the picture of the pizza for inspiration. To start with, I didn't have a pre-made pizza crust (all out at Kroger) but one of those pizzas in a bag that you can get in the baking aisle of the grocery store. So I basically just followed the directions on the bag.

I tried to get fancy and preheat the pizza stone and then place the pizza on it. I'm getting ahead of myself. Here is what I put on the pizza. For the sauce I used some spicy spaghetti sauce, very tasty. I then layered some shredded mozzarella. On top of that I put a bit of green onions we had that were about to go bad. Why? Because as Tiffany says "We are in a recession and we already bought them and don't want them to go to waste." I also placed some halved cherry tomatoes and topped the whole thing off with some basil and some more cheese.

The pizza stone and oven was preheated to 425. The back of the bag for the pizza crust had directions for using the pizza stone. It suggested using a wooden paddle to slide the pizza onto the pizza stone and I was all like, "I don't need a paddle, I can improvise. I'm a smart guy". I was feeling pretty smug with my system. I had placed the pizza on top of some parchment paper that had been layered with corn meal. The plan was to roll the pizza off the parchment paper onto the stone.

I hadn't counted on the pizza sticking to the parchment paper. I ended up using a spatula to get the pizza off the parchment paper and by that point the pizza was in pieces. I thought for sure my Italian genes would get me through on this one. Oh well. The good news is that even though I messed it up it still tasted great. I guess even I can't miss up bread, cheese and tomatoes :)