Once more, with feeling

Because I had the second crust in the fridge, I decided to try the whole pizza thing over again with a couple of changed. The most major difference: I used a pizza stone.

For the record, I have some kitchen gadgets -- popcorn popper, espresso maker, who knows what else. They're buried in the back of the cabinets, and usually I'm too lazy to find them -- so I just use the basics. But after the last pizza, I figured it was worth it to use the pizza stone.

Here's what happened:

1. Start by preheating the oven and the pizza stone to 500°:
   
   


2. Remove the low-carb whole wheat pizza crust from the fridge:
   
   
   
   Note the satisfaction guarantee:
   
   


3. Cover the pizza crust with garlic and a little bit of melted butter:
   
   


4. As suggested, coat with a thin layer of the shredded cheese:
   
   


5. Layer on thinly sliced heirloom tomatoes:
   
   
   
   Note: To slice the three medium-sized tomatoes this thinly, I placed them in an egg-slicer, and used its guidelines to cut them, using a very sharp kitchen knife. When I was finished, the slices were about 1/8 of an inch thick -- practically sheer.


6. Add thinly sliced fresh mozzarella:
   
   
   
   I used a similar technique to slice the mozzarella.


7. Add some chopped fresh basil:
   
   


8. And some parmigiano-reggiano and a dash of sea salt, and place on the pizza stone to bake for 8 minutes at 425°:
   
   

Tonight's result:



The fresh tomatoes and mozzarella still gave up some water, but almost all of it was absorbed by the initial layer of cheese. And because of the pizza stone, instead of being like soggy cardboard, the underside of the crust got very crispy.

All in all, despite the low-carb crust, it was a pretty good pizza -- mostly because of everyone who chimed in with pizza advice.

My stomach thanks you.