Margarita Pizza

I was recently given a bag full of garden tomatoes. They looked so fresh and ripe I decided that although I'm often a planner of meals and recipes, I had to act quickly and on my toes to whip up a dinner using tomatoes. They weren't going to last much longer and I couldn't let them go to waste! With a few other ingredients I had on hand, I decided to use these tomatoes towards a Margarita Pizza.

I love pizza night and try to make it once a week as one of my "lazy" meals. A person can only cook so many time consuming meals in one week. So I like to make pizza when I'm in the need for a night off from cooking.

When I started living on my own, I used to buy frozen pizzas to provide that quick and easy meal. I have since learned that although buying frozen pizza is easy, it's also expensive and not the healthiest option. A better alternative is customizing your very own homemade pizza!

Making your own homemade pizza isn't as time consuming as I once thought. I still haven't learned to make my own pizza dough, but I hope to write a new post featuring my first attempt at it soon! In the mean time, I've been buying a fresh ball of dough that our grocery store sells from a local bakery. It's made with natural ingredients without preservatives. It's a great base for a healthy pizza. With the pairing of mozzarella and garden fresh tomatoes and basil this is the best quick meal option for tonight's dinner!









Margarita Pizza
(Printable Recipe)

Ingredients
Pizza dough
1 large tomato, thinly sliced
1 16 oz. log of mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup basil, thinly sliced
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil

Directions
Roll out the pizza dough into a circle. Brush a pizza stone with olive oil and sprinkle with cornmeal. Place the pizza dough onto the pizza stone. Brush the dough with a generous amount of olive oil. Slice one tomato into thin slices and lay over the pizza dough to cover the entire surface of the dough. Then cut mozzarella into 1/4 inch slices and lay over the tomatoes. Scatter the mozzarella with enough space in between each piece of cheese for the cheese to spread as it melts. Thinly slice about 1/2 cup of basil and scatter over the mozzarella and tomatoes. Finish by sprinkling salt and pepper and a little olive oil to maximize the flavor. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes or until the pizza dough appears golden and cheese begins to brown.