Monday, July 20, 2009

Easy Pizza with Farmer's Market Ingredients


Pizza alla Neapoletana


I'm having some problems with my picture editing program so my posts from my Arizona trip are taking a little longer than I wanted. Sooooo...I'm posting a recipe from my weekend trip to the local Farmer's Market. It is held in downtown Omaha in the Old Market Area and I just love going on Saturday mornings....obviously we have some great farmer's here in Nebraska and this is such a wonderful way to support them and get really fresh (and often organic) veggies and meat. I bought some amazing basil, tomatoes and jalapenos so of course first thing I thought of making was pizza!!! I'm not a big fan of lots of sauce on my pizza and with all these great fresh flavors I didn't even add any meat to this pizza and let me tell you....it was just perfect! So next time you want to eat pizza....don't just think of ordering a greasy...saucy pizza over the phone....make your family a really fresh and healthy version and I promise that they will love it!

Avesta's Version of Pizza alla Neapoletana
Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees (use a pizza stone if you have one)

1 Large Pizza Crust (pre-baked) (I like thin crust so I usually use a Middle Eastern flatbread for my crust or I make my own but you can use whatever crust you like)
(12 or 14 inch)
2 garlic cloves chopped fine
1/4 cup olive oil
2 Yellow Tomatoes (or any heirloom tomato you can find) (sliced thin)
3 Roma Tomatoes (sliced thin)
1 Jalapeno (seeded and diced)
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
fresh mozzarella (I used to large balls that I cut up in small pieces)
sea or kosher salt to taste
1-2 tablespoons olive oil to drizzle on top

Mix the olive oil and garlic and spread all over your pizza crust. Then layer the crust with slices of tomatoes, jalapenos and fresh basil. Sprinkle with salt and top with the fresh mozzarella. Drizzle the top of the pizza with the rest of the olive oil to get that golden brown effect. Bake for about 15 minutes or until it is golden and the crust is crisp.

Make sure to spread the toppings evenly over the crust.
I love fresh mozzarella but if you don't have fresh mozz you can substitute this with any shredded pizza cheese that you enjoy.
This isn't a very good picture but I hope that you can see how good this pizza was with the golden baked fresh mozzarella and all those fresh ingredients I got at the farmer's market...simple but oh so good!

5 comments:

La Cuisine d'Helene said...

Oh my, what a beautiful pizza. Love the fact that you are using local ingredients :)

Ingrid_3Bs said...

I've actually made my own crust before yay, me! You're right its so easy and so much better than most.

I like a thicker crust but like you don't care for it too saucy. As a matter of fact I like the Bianca pizza.

Good to have you back Avesta and hope your photo program situation works out!
~ingrid

Olga said...

I've made something similar and added olives.
I like the idea of jalapeno on pizza.

Marc @ NoRecipes said...

Mmm looks fantastic. I always keep a bowl of dough sitting in the fridge for making a quick pizza during the week. It's often faster than ordering takeout and certainly tastier.

snekse said...

Looks pretty tasty. I'm a big fan of this style of pizza. Vivace's is now doing neapolitan pizzas that are actually pretty good. There's also a new certified neapolitan pizzeria, Dante Pizzeria Napoletana, opening at 168th and Center this fall. Their menu looks awesome.