My Margherita

Nope, it’s not a typo. I’m not talking about the drink (Tequila doesn’t really do it for me). Take a look at the picture. Now are you getting a clue? Yep! We’re talking Pizza Margherita! Wanna know who Margherita is? Click here to read more. For those of you not in the know, a Pizza Margherita is made in the colours of the Italian flag with 3 ingredients – tomatoes, fresh mozzarella cheese (or bocconcini) and basil. When it’s summer, and you have 2 of those ingredients growing in your on garden, how can you NOT make this pizza? You pretty much have to. Here’s how to make Pizza Margherita, HHH style.

I started by roasting some halved Roma tomatoes with salt and pepper, nothing else, at 450 for about half an hour. I figured that way, they wouldn’t be too juicy on the crust (speaking of which, you already know by now that I made it with a Flatout wrap). After the tomatoes cooled slightly, I used a tomato masher to crush them into a sauce – you should have seen the juice/seed explosions that occurred – some of which landed on my shirt (of course).

You can see my cheese of choice to the right: light bocconcini. For two pizzas, I used 6 “units” (that’s what the tub says!) – 3 for each pizza. I sliced each “unit” into 4 slices, and arranged them so that each pizza would have 3 slices of cheese on it.

For the pizza assembly, I smeared half the tomato sauce on each crust. Then I arranged the cheese slices in two lines, so they would be evenly distributed upon cutting. I topped it all off with a generous sprinkling of chopped fresh basil. *Tip: if using fresh basil, don’t cut ahead of time – it browns very quickly! I added alight sprinkling of salt and pepper, and they were ready for the oven. I then baked at 400 for about 10 minutes, just enough to melt the cheese.

Continuing with the summer, garden-fresh theme, my side dish was a huge big salad with grilled veggies and fresh corn (after yesterday’s post, this should surprise no one). I have to say, although this was a pretty darn tasty meal and I liked the pizza, somehow it didn’t have as much flavour as I expected. Maybe it was the lack of olive oil, or the light cheese? Or maybe I just needed to go a little heavier on the salt and pepper? Any suggestions? It was still delicious though, and I would definitely make it again (and probably should, just to tinker with things a bit more).

Speaking of Pizza Margherita, I saw this place featured on The Best Thing I Ever Ate – the pizza show AND in Food Network Magazine. Mark Summers, of Unwrapped fame (yes, I am a Food Network junkie – what’s your point?), said that this restaurant, Osteria’s pizza Margherita is the best pizza he ever ate. I’m thinking that it might be a good place to check out for dinner after the Healthy Living Summit (3 more days!) on Saturday?! We shall see!

Do you like more “North American” style pizzas (deep dish, meat-laden, pepperoni, etc) or classic Italian ones, like the Margherita?