Pizza ready for the oven
This a terrific pizza for two, especially when the colorful red, orange, and yellow cherry tomatoes are in season and at the farmers’ market. I cut the tomatoes in half lengthwise. I make my own pesto from fresh basil from my garden. What a treat this pizza is for everyone!
Cherry tomato and pesto pizza with prosciutto
Ingredients
- One pizza dough for a 10-inch pizza*
- 1/4 cup of basil pesto – recipe for basil pesto
- 2 oz – Prosciutto
- One pint cherry tomatoes – you can sub garden fresh big tomatoes
- 1 TBS of Olive oil
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 1/3 cup Fontana Cheese, 1/3 cup Mozzarella cheese mixed together
Instructions
- Roll out the dough on your pizza peel. In the meantime, cut cherry tomatoes, place in a bowl and add the minced garlic and olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste and let tomatoes sit for 30 minutes. Brush basil pesto on the dough. Layer on the prosciutto. Place half of the tomatoes on the pizza and sprinkle on half of the cheese. Add the remaining tomatoes and then the cheese. Slide pizza** off the peel onto a pizza stone and cook at 500 degrees for 4 – 6 minutes. If your oven does not go that high, adjust the cooking time.
* Many pizza restaurants will sell you a ten-inch pizza dough. I buy my dough from our local Il Fornaio Restaurant for $2. Many supermarkets like Whole Foods sell pizza dough. If you want to make it from scratch, try this: Joanne Weir Pizza Dough.
** This is the hardest part of making a pizza. Joanne Weir says to hold the pizza peel at a twenty-degree angle and gently shake the pizza towards the stone. Here is a trick I use. I slide the pizza dough without any ingredients onto the stone and cook for 1 minute. That one minute gives the bottom enough firmness to easily slide a fully-topped pizza onto the stone.
Wine Matches
- For this Cherry tomato and pesto pizza, I love a Zinfandel wine. I think it is the perfect wine and food pairing. The pesto in the pizza cries out for Zinfandel
Essential tools for making homemade pizza
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