Hey friends!  Happy Wednesday!  What’s that you say?  Wednesdays are the worst?  Agreed.  Happy Wednesday.

Let’s focus on happier things, shall we?  Like pizza!  Are you guys pizza’d (yeah, that word just happened) out yet?  I could eat pizza basically all day every day, so I don’t really have a good gauge for that limit of “too much pizza.”

I’m gonna go ahead and assume you guys are still excited about it and are super pumped to see this next recipe.  Whoop!  Let’s do it!  (By the way, putting in exclamation points makes anything more exciting.  Watch → You get to go to the DMV!  So awesome!  Your cat puked on the rug!  Wha-what!  ← Ok, so apparently it just makes things like that seem sarcastic, so I totally just disputed my own point.  But I digress…)

Pizza!

I want to eat my computer screen right now.  I.  LOVE.  PIZZA.

Alrighty, a little background for those of you who actually care about the words that come out of my brain and make their way on to this blog (for the rest of you, scroll down until you see Recipe and get on with the pizza-making).  Margherita pizza is classic cheese pizza in Italia.  Though many American restaurants would have you believe that Margherita pizza is always served with fresh basil, in Italia, this is not the case — it’s simply cheese.  However, let’s take a moment to talk about American cheese pizza vs. Italian cheese pizza.

Want to know the difference?  Here it is:

That, my friends, is fresh mozzarella.  And no, that’s not what’s used on most American cheese pizzas (unless you’re at a fancy pizza joint like Pizzaiolo).

The Italian food philosophy is to make simple food with the best ingredients available.  So while many of you may be like, “Seriously, Chelsea?  Cheese pizza?  What am I, 9?”  Let me just take a moment to tell you that this pizza is delicious.  Like, stuff-half-the-pie-in-your-face-before-KC-grabs-a-slice delicious.  Not that that’s how last night went down or anything.  (A little note: it’s super awesome to be married to me.  Super.  Awesome.  Just ask KC.)

But let’s just get right down to it, shall we?  Last night I whipped up a batch of pizza dough when I got home from work.  I used all 00 flour this time, as my lovely grandpa had given me a bag of it over the weekend.  (Ahem, yeah, my grandpa knows pizza.  He can whip up a crust that will make you cry.  Oh yeah, and my grandma?  She makes a red sauce that will take your pants off.  Things just got awkward, didn’t they?)

Anyway, half of the dough got stretched out and covered in olive oil.  (Most things in my kitchen get covered in olive oil.  I’m Italian so basically, if I don’t know what to do with something, I just cover it in olive oil.  It works.)

If you want to “watch your waistline” a bit, you could leave off the olive oil, since you’re going to throw some sauce all over that bad boy; but, y’all know how I love a crispy crust, and olive oil makes that crust brown and crispy like nobody’s business (so many inappropriate metaphors almost went in right there.  Reign it in, Chelsea.)

Alright, sauce it up, then throw on a little parm (yep, yet another Italian tradition.  When in doubt, add parmesan.)

That goes in the oven for a bit to brown up.  In the meantime, slice up the cheese.

So here’s my trick for the fresh mozz — when I take it out of the water, I press the cheese into a clean towel to take off the excess moisture.  Those of you who have cooked with fresh mozzarella know that that excess moisture will make it onto your pizza, and can leave you with a bit of a soggy mess.  Boo hiss to that.  Pressing out the moisture ahead of time means you get a deliciously cheesy, non-watery pie every time.

Now, slicing up that cheese took you all of what, 12 seconds?  So you’ve got 11.8 minutes to do whatever you want!  What should you do?  I have no idea.

I’m sure you’ll think of something.

By the way, yeah, that’s totally ice in my wine.  I’m super fancy like that.  Also, that wine is $4 at Trader Joe’s.  I’m amazed at how high-class I am, too.

Ok, pizza’s done blind-baking, so throw that cheese on there.

Get it back in the oven for another 8 minutes or so.  (Discussion on this down at the bottom.)

Finish your wine.  Pour yourself another glass.  No judgments here.

Pull it out of the oven and let it sit for 5 minutes to let the cheese come together.

I like to sprinkle a little sea salt over the top of mine, as fresh mozzarella is not nearly as salty as other cheeses.  But, this is totally optional.  You should also know that I love salt, so there’s that.

Recipe

• 1 lb pizza dough
• olive oil (optional)
• Red sauce of your choice (I use TJ’s Pizza Sauce.  Because I’ve been too lazy to make my own.)
• Parmesan cheese, grated (optional)
• Fresh mozzarella
• Fresh basil (optional)
• Salt (sea, flake, or kosher — also optional)

1. Preheat oven to 475° F
2. Stretch your dough into whatever shape works for you (mine was a giant, lumpy oval last night), then press it into an oiled pan.
3. Brush with olive oil (optional).
4. Cover with sauce (make sure to go almost to the edge), and sprinkle with parmesan cheese (optional).
5. Blind-bake for 10-12 minutes, until crust is just browned.
6. While dough is blind-baking, take your fresh mozzarella and press it into a clean towel (or paper towel) to remove the excess moisture, then slice thinly.
7. When dough is done blind-baking, place the mozz in an even layer on the pizza.
8. Place pizza back in the oven and bake until cheese is melted.*
9. Remove pizza from oven, place on a large board and let sit for 5 minutes.
10. Sprinkle a little salt and/or fresh basil over the top (optional).
11. Slice, then eat the entire thing.

I make this pizza almost weekly, and there has yet to be a night where KC and I don’t polish off the entire thing.  You guys, I might need a pizza intervention.  Nope, I can stop anytime I want to.