True Taste of Italy

There is a famous legend that goes along with Pizza Margherita and my personal favorite pizza dish.  As the story goes, the French could not prepare a pizza fit for a queen so the famous Italian, “Pizzaiolo Raffaele Esposito,” was invited to the Queen’s court to prepare a proper pizza.  He created a pizza with the colors of the Italian flag and this pizza was fit for royalty.

Ingredients for Pizza Margherita:

• 1 recipe Basic Pizza Dough, rolled out
• 3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
• 1 (28 ounce) can whole peeled or crushed tomatoes with juice
• 1½ cups shredded mozzarella cheese or freshly sliced mozzarella cheese
• 8 leaves fresh basil, chopped

Directions for Pizza Margherita:

• Preheat oven to 400°F.
• Brush 1 tablespoon olive oil on pizza dough and place in oven to bake for approximately 5 minutes, then remove.
• Spread tomatoes evenly over top of pizza, then distribute cheese evenly to cover.  Add salt and pepper to taste and drizzle remaining olive oil.
• Bake about 30 minutes.  Remove from oven, sprinkle chopped basil over pizza and serve.  Enjoy!

Serves 4.