Every pizza we’ve created deserves it’s own time to shine. I’ve decided to share some of our past pizzas for some limited time #tbt posts (until I run out of old pictures!).
One of our favorite pizzas of the past is the margherita pizza. Classically, the margherita pizza consists of sauce, fresh mozzarella, +/- fresh basil. We have made a few different margherita pies in our time, and we have finally made some tweaks and changes to create a pizza that is easy on the eyes as well as the taste buds.
This was our first attempt:
We made some serious rookie mistakes:
- We put the basil on before putting the pizza in the oven and it wilted and charred
- We used canned sauce (this can be okay if you’ve tried the sauce before!)
- For the cheese we used fresh Wegmans mozzarella, which is fine… we just didn’t account for all the water packed in the cheese.
»» Pro Pizza Tip: when using fresh mozzarella packed in water, slice it thin, sprinkle it with salt, and cover with paper towels weighed down with something sturdy, like a wooden cutting board. Let sit for 5-10 minutes. This will help remove some of the moisture from the cheese, and prevent a runny pizza (see above pizza fail!). Alternatively, we have started using the Polly-O block mozzarella cheese. It still has all the creamy freshness but you don’t have to worry about it causing a soggy crust««
To dive into our version of the margherita pizza, I have to first tell you about Pastabilities. Pastabilities is my absolute favorite restaurant in Syracuse. It is a very cute little Italian restaurant. Patrick and I had our first date there during our sophomore year in college, we would always celebrate my birthday there, and we went there to celebrate our engagement. Needless to say, it’s delicious.
Not too long ago Pastabilities was featured on Food Network’s Diner’s, Drive-Ins and Dives for its duck pizza and chicken riggies! Although I love me some Food Network, I have to wonder why on earth they didn’t feature Pastabilities’ spicy hot tomato oil as the star of the show instead! It is a delicious spicy tomato sauce/dipping oil hybrid combo. They serve it as a dipping sauce with their homemade fresh bread as an appetizer. It is AMAZING. It’s so popular that they started jarring it and selling it, most prominently featured in Wegmans (living without Wegmans here in Delaware is a whole different story for a whole new blog post). Thankfully since Pat and I moved to northern Wilmington we actually have a Wegmans in Glen Mills, PA, only 20 minutes away. I was beyond excited to see that Pastabilities was represented all the way down here at the Delaware border!
So anyways, the sauce is delicious but kind of expensive. Thankfully, Patrick and I have a found a delicious recipe for a very accurate knock-off sauce from food blogger Ciao Chow Bambina. It’s definitely the closest replica to the real deal- and we’ve tried a bunch. It’s quick and easy, just throw the ingredients in a sauce pan and let it simmer for a few hours. (**we use significantly less olive oil than is called for in the recipe- only about 2 tbsp, and add more later if needed**).
We had the bright idea to use the spicy tomato sauce as our margherita base instead of traditional sauce. It was an excellent idea! The spicy tomato sauce combined with the cool freshness of fresh mozzarella and basil is a perfect combination.
I would go so far as to say that we are pretty close to perfecting our margherita pizza, spicy sauce and all:
If you haven’t already, give the margherita pizza a try, store-bought or homemade, and let me know what you think!
See you Sunday!
Carrie
the.pizza.sunday.blog 
Fun post! Now I’m craving pizza!! Thank you for that! And thank you for sharing my recipe! That sauce is just tooo good, isn’t it?!! 🙂
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