Perfecting the pizza

I am a bit addicted to finding new recipes and new magazines that have outstanding food photos.  Dan and I were standing in line at Whole Foods a few days ago when I saw Gourmet’s Italian Kitchen Special Edition.  I’m trying to avoid making impulse buys at the grocery store, but in this case, I made an exception.  We were planning to have friends over to watch the Oscars, and so I decided to try out the Margherita pizza recipe.  I picked up some Cento San Marzano tomatoes and some fresh high moisture mozzarella to see how high-quality ingredients would affect the result.

The pizza turned out great!  I had so much fun making the dough and the sauce and I think cooking the pizza at 500 degrees made all the difference.  I did add some fun spices to one ball of dough and to the tomato sauce. 

Fun Pizza/Bagel/Breadstick Spice Combo
1 1/2 Tbsp oregano
1 Tbsp dried basil
1 Tbsp dried rosemary
1 1/2 T dried onion flakes
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp chili flakes
7 peppercorns
1/4 Tbsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp fennel seeds

My mistake was just crushing the garlic and not chopping it into small pieces. I have been trying in vain to find a fabulous margherita pizza and I think I’ve done it.  The cheese was packed in water and melted beautifully, the basil was fresh and refreshing, and I could even taste the spices in the dough.

The only downside to this recipe is that it does not save well.  I tried to reheat it for lunch on Monday and it wasn’t awesome. The dough was defeated by the tomato sauce and became a soggy mess.  I guess that means that we’re going to have to power through and finish the entire recipe next time!