Week 30: Multi-Cheese Margherita Pizza

This weekend I’m mostly on my own as the lovely wife is off to AnimeIowa. So I started poking around AllRecipes.com to see what I could make for dinner. Given that we’ve gotten a fair number of tomatoes from our CSA share and that tomatoes tend to trigger an acid reflux attack on the lovely wife; I decided to hunt for a recipe to use up a bunch of tomatoes. I’d thought I’d seen a quick/easy stuffed tomato recipe recently, but couldn’t find that. After a bit more searching, I ran across this recipe for Four Cheese Margherita Pizza which sounded good. So I went to the grocery store, got some ingredients and whipped it up. My version was tastier than the recipe sounded. *grin* Below is my altered version of the recipe.

Multi-Cheese Margherita Pizza

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup olive oil[ref]I used an extra virgin olive oil.[/ref]
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
• 8 Roma tomatoes[ref]I didn’t have 8 roma tomatoes. Instead I used 3 large and 2 medium tomatoes[/ref]
• 2 (12 inch) pre-baked pizza crusts
• 16 ounces shredded Mozzarella cheese
• 16 ounces shredded Pizza cheese[ref]This is a blend of Mozzarella, Parmesan, Romana & Provolone (with “smoke flavoring”) cheeses that my local grocery store sells.[/ref]
• 10 fresh basil leaves, washed, dried
• 4 ounces crumbled feta cheese

Directions

1. Slice your tomatoes and put the slices into a large mixing bowl.
2. Pour the 1/4 cup of olive oil over the tomatoes.
3. Sprinkle the tomatoes & oil with the coarse kosher salt.
4. Peel the garlic cloves and chop them into fine pieces.
5. Add the chopped garlic to the tomatoes and mix everything thoroughly.
6. Allow the mixture to sit for at least 15 minutes.
7. Wash and shred the basil leaves.
8. Preheat your oven to 400° F (200° C).
9. Brush each pizza crust with some of the tomato marinade (the juice & oil mixture at the bottom of the large mixing bowl containing your tomato mixture).
10. Sprinkle the crusts evenly with all of the Mozzarella cheese and about half of the Pizza cheese.
11. Arrange tomatoes on top of the pizzas, then sprinkle with shredded basil, the remainder of the Pizza cheese, and feta cheese.
12. Bake in preheated oven until the cheese is bubbly and golden brown, about 15 minutes.

Notes for Next Time

• Spread the cheese out more evenly, espeically the feta.
• Prepare the tomato mixture sooner, to allow it to marinate longer.
• Use minced garlic rather than trying to chop the garlic cloves myself.