Healthy and Fresh Homemade Margherita Pizza

Good (early) afternoon!

I had the most amazing Memorial Day Weekend!  I hope you did as well.

First and foremost, the BAWS Spartan group celebrated Memorial Day by doing a "Hero" workout in honor of all the service men and woman who gave their life for us to gain freedom.  This has been a tradition of ours (and other gyms) for a couple years now.  The workout was:

1 (hilly) mile run
100 pull ups
200 push ups
300 squats
1 (hilly) mile run

Since we did this workout outside, we tweaked it a little bit because of our lack of pull ups bars.  It worked, we did it, and I am so proud of us.

Other fun adventures from the weekend- Rices Market, Serafina Restaurant in Philadelphia, sun bathing by the pool, time with family, Cheesecake Factory, Limerick Philadelphia Outlets, a couple adult beverages and ... homemade pizza!

Mike and I used to create our own homemade pizzas all the time.  However, we mostly used to buy the Boboli pre-cooked pizza crust, shredded bagged cheese and pepperoni- plus whatever else tickled our fancy (think non-healthy toppings).  After writing the ebook Treat Yourself and researching healthier pizza options, we became obsessed with making pizzas that had fresh ingredients and less GMO products.  The taste is incredibly differently... more delectable, refreshing and pure.

This homemade margherita pizza is one of our favorite go-tos when we want something simple, tasty and fast.  It has such a sweet aroma and taste from the caramelized onions and garlic.  The mozzarella cheese adds a creaminess and the basil places an anise twang in there as well.  From beginning to end, you can make this within 25-30 minutes.  The only thing that may trip people up while reading the ingredients is where to find the the fresh uncooked pizza dough. Easy- Giant, Acme, Sams Italian Market... they all have it, you just having to do a little hunting or stop an employee in the market.  Women do that faster than men, don't they?  :)  We have things to do, ya know!

Healthy and Fresh Homemade Margherita Pizza- feeds 3 people

1 fresh whole wheat pizza dough ball
1 tbsp cornmeal
4 oz fresh mozzarella
4 leaves fresh basil chopped
3/4 cup pizza sauce (depends on how much sauce you like)
1/3 slivered yellow onion
3 large garlic cloves
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 450 degrees and place your pizza stone in the oven to heat up.  If you don't have a pizza stone, place your rolled dough onto a cookie sheet with cornmeal sprinkled between the sheet and the dough (I used to make mine in a rectangle shape so it conformed to the cookie sheet) and place the dough in the oven for about 5-6 minutes to pre-cook the dough a little.

While your stone or dough is heating up, sauté the onions and garlic in olive oil on medium high heat
until the onions are opaque.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  After the pizza stone is hot and your dough is spread out, place the cornmeal on the stone and then add the pizza dough on it.  Get it to the shape you like and then add on sauce, caramelized onion, garlic and fresh mozzarella.  Place it in the oven and cook for 12 minutes.  Take it out, let it cool for 5 minutes, sprinkle fresh basil and dig in!

Some behind the scenes action:

You would have thought this pizza was famous by the way Mike and I were photographing it last night.

Bon apetite!