We were late planting our herb garden, but after it started doing well we knew we would have a huge amount of herbs. Our first big harvest was a week ago and we decided to make a classic Margherita pizza. We got the equivalent of a small grocery bag full of basil so we had to do quite a bit of cooking if we wanted to use it in fresh form. We decided we’d do some Italian dishes like the above captioned Margherita Pizza, some fresh Pesto in the food processor, and of course some Marinara sauce.
I made the Margherita Pizza using our fresh basil, some tomatoes from the local farmer’s market, garlic, olive oil, and the dough recipe I’ve written about before. I used a Pampered Chef pizza stone.
My Margherita pizza was made using this recipe:
Pizza Dough (recipe link)
4 cloves of garlic
1 large heirloom tomato
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves
12 oz. Mozzerella cheese
Place a tiny amount of olive oil on your pizza stone or if you’re using a plain pizza pan, use a little cornmeal and flour. Spread your dough out using a roller. Put the olive oil on the dough and spread it out equally. Mince the garlic cloves and distribute them evenly on the dough. Spread the cheese out over the dough. Then, place your tomatoes and basil on the cheese. Cook this on 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes.
It’s very satisfying to grow your own herbs. It’s very cost effective as well. Fresh basil is expensive. 1/8 of a cup of fresh basil at any of the grocery stores in my area would cost around $3.00. One batch of pesto calls for 2 cups of fresh basil (packed!). We have all sorts of other herbs, vegetables, and peppers growing. We live in a suburb and have a small backyard. Our herb garden is in a bed approximately 8′ x 4′ and the tomatoes and peppers are all in planters around the backyard. Stay tuned for more fresh herbs!
Margherita pizza!
[...] basil plants are on overdrive and have produced far more basil than one family could ever use. I dropped off a [...]