Margherita Pizza

Phillip and I recently returned from New York. We ate the most delicious pizza at Lombardi's in Little Italy. When I was flipping through my Food Nanny recipe book (I bought it at Swiss Days last year and LOVE it!), I noticed this recipe and thought it was very similar to what we had in NYC. I made it for my family and we gobbled it up fast. It was delicious. I also used her Basic Pizza Crust recipe and did half flour half wheat and it had such a good honey wheat flavor. The only thing it was missing was the wood burning oven taste. So simple, so fresh, and pretty fast. Once my tomatoes and basil start growing this summer, I know I'll be making this a lot.

Ingredients:

2 pounds of very ripe Roma or Hot House tomatoes

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 c. olive oil

8 oz Mozzerella Cheese thinly sliced

2 T. freshly grated imported Parmigiano-Reggiano

1 pinch of course salt and ground black pepper

14 count small basil leaves torn into pieces (I like to stack, roll, and cut)

Directions:

Oil the pizza pan(s) and set aside. Prepare the pizza dough, roll it out, and place it in the prepared pan(s). Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Dice the tomatoes (I like them pealed), discard the seeds, and combine with 1/4 tsp. salt and 1/4 c oil in a bowl. Spread over the crust. Bake for 15-20 on the lowest oven rack. Remove pizza from oven and arrange the mozzerella and Parmesean. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and drizzle with additional olive oil. Return to oven until bubbly, 5-10 minutes. Top with basil and serve immediately.

For the Basic Pizza Dough recipe, go to the Food Nanny Blog.