Margherita Pizza

So I finally made my first homemade pizza.

And it was amaaaazing.

The pictures didn't come out as great as I had hoped, but it sure tasted incredible!  And that's all that matters right?  I used this recipe that my lovely friend Amanda had shared from The Pioneer Woman and adapted the rest of it using a recipe I found from Cooking Light.

The simplicity of this pizza is just what I was looking for and uses absolutely no sauce!  Just sliced tomatoes, fat-free mozzarella cheese, chopped basil and a bit of balsamic!  My favorite combination of ingredients all on one heaping pile of dough.

Which also tasted crazy delicious.

The great thing about the dough is that you can make it ahead of time and use whenever you'd like.  I halved the recipe since I knew I was just making one pizza and stored it in the fridge for about 2 1/2 days til I made it.  It was super easy to make and was fun to shape!

I do want to invest, however, in a nice pizza stone because I think my pizza would have come out a million times better, but for now this works.  The great thing about this is you can make any type of pizza you want!  The possibilities are endless!  I just happen to be the pickiest eater known to man so I kept it simple.

...and I write for a food blog?

Crazy.

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Servings: 6

Serving Size: 2 slices

Calories: 230

Fat: 7 g

Carbs: 32 g

Fiber: 1.8 g

Protein: 7.6 g

Old Points: 4.8 pts

Points+: 6 pts

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Here are your ingredients:

Recipe adapted from The Pioneer Woman and Cooking Light 

For the dough:

1/2 tsp. active dry or instant yeast

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. salt

3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

3/4 cup warm water

For the pizza:

1 tsp. extra virgin olive oil

1 garlic clove, halved

4 plum tomatoes, thinly sliced

1 cup (4 oz) fat free mozzarella cheese, shredded

1 tsp. balsamic vinegar

1/2 fresh basil, chopped

1/8 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. black pepper

Sprinkle yeast over warm water.  In your stand mixer using the paddle attachment, combine the flour and salt.  Then on a slow speed, drizzle in the olive oil until just combined with the flour.  Next pour in the yeast/water mixture and mix until just combined.  Form the dough into a ball.

Coat a separate bowl with a touch of olive oil and place your ball of dough into the bowl.  Cover tightly with plastic wrap and store in fridge until ready to use, at least 24 hours in advance.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees F.  Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray (or utilize a pizza stone if you have one) and get a bit of flour on your hands.  Start working your dough and stretch it into a long rectangle on your baking sheet, pressing with your fingers to finish forming.  Your dough should be very thin.

Brush your dough with about a 1/2 teaspoon of olive oil and rub your crust with the cut sides of the garlic.  Arrange tomato slices over crust, leaving a 1/2 inch border and sprinkle mozzarella cheese evenly throughout.  Bake at 500 degrees F for 10 to 12 minutes or until crust is golden brown and cheese is bubbly.  Sprinkle pizza evenly with chopped basil, salt and pepper and feel free to drizzle a bit of balsamic if desired.  Enjoy!

Click here for a printable version of this recipe

Hope everyone is having a great week so far!

Just so y'all know, I'm practically blind writing this post so I apologize ahead of time if there any typos!  I finally went to see the eye doctor this morning to get my eyes checked and to get some glasses.  They had to dilate my eyes basically making me blind for about 4 hours, but at least I'll be able to see better now since I've been putting this off since pretty much college!

Oh and you know I'm going to rock some super cute lenses.
Hmm maybe I'll even look smarter?

...probably not.