The Simple Things

Sometimes it's the simplest of ingredients that have the most impressive results. Johnnycakes and I certainly felt that way recently when we made a beautiful mozzarella caprese dish using the simple ingredients of fresh local Maryland tomatoes, olive oil, fresh basil and mozzarella cheese.

Mozzarella Caprese

Ingredients

1 large tomato

1/2 cup of fresh basil

1/2 cup of slice fresh mozzarella

2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

salt and pepper

Preparation

Drizzle the bottom of a dish with olive oil. Delicately space the salted, sliced tomatoes along the bottom of the dish. Gently place on basil leaf on top of each tomato and then stack a piece of mozzarella (about a 1/2 piece) on top. Drizzle the plate again with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and freshly ground pepper.

I like to each these little towers on top of freshly baked crostini, which is only sliced french bread topped with a bit of olive oil and baked until crunchy.

With the remaining fresh tomato, basil, bread and cheese. We even found time to make little pizzas. We topped the bread halves with tomato, mozzarella, basil, red onion, sausage and Parmesan cheese and baked for about 12 minutes.

As you can see, our efforts yielded spectacular results!