Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Stop, Pizza Time! Oh, oh , oh.... -- Stone Baked Margherita Pizza

My apologies to MC Hammer who, due to recent monetary setbacks, probably shops at ALDI too. Anyway, we all love pizza. LOVE IT! I'm always on the lookout for a delicious frozen pizza - which might be an oxymoron. At any rate, I'm always eating frozen pizza, to the point that I fancy myself somewhat of an expert on the subject. So when I saw that Mama Cozzi had a stone baked variety for a mere $2.99 I was pretty exicited, but I've been fooled by Mama before so it's with a bit of trepidation I give you Mama Cozzi's Stone Baked Margherita Pizza -

Imported From Europe (NJ)

This pie claims to be "Imported From Europe" which seems sort of suspicious to me. I mean it's clear they want you to think "ITALY" so why don't they say Imported From Italy? For all I know this pizza was slapped together in some slave wage kitchen in Serbia or Croatia. It's made with real cheese whatever that means and has 0 grams of trans fat. As I recall, Margherita was the only flavor of the stone baked variety that ALDI was selling. It's got lots of diced tomatoes and it's liberally sprinkled with what I assume is the traditional Margherita topping of lime and salt...er, basil. It's a pretty thin crust too which is usually a good sign in the frozen pizza world. A quick math lesson for frozen pizza buying. Because the crust is usually the weakest part of the pizza the less of it you have to gnaw through the better so....thinner > thicker. I tossed it in the oven at 425 for 12 minutes per Mama's instructions and....


TADA!

I added some parmesan cheese - also from ALDI - hey maybe I should add that to this review. One sec while I snap a picture....

Say CHEEEEESE!  

Okay, back to the review. Where was I? Oh yeah, I sprinkled some parmesan cheese on top. The pizza browned nicely and the cheese melted evenly. The pizza was pretty decent. There wasn't a lot of basil flavor to it so maybe that wasn't basil after all but the sauce was good, the cheese was creamy and good and the Reggano Parmesan was salty. The only thing I didn't like was the weird feel the crust had when I picked it up. Kind of dusty or sandy - I can't really explain - it just felt odd. But it was crispy and pretty decent for frozen pizza. It's not the best frozen pizza I ever ate but it's far from the worst - I'm looking at you Red Baron.

I give this Mama Cozzi's Stone Baked Margherita Pizza an L for would buy again (in a pinch). I gets an L because I gave it an L- for the weird crust and an L+ for being only $2.99 which is a wash. The Reggano Parmesan Cheese I also give an L for would buy again because it's impossible to screw up that kind of parmesan cheese.
Stray thoughts
  •  There's a bunch of different Mama Cozzi brand pizzas at ALDI. Tombstone style thin crust, rising crust and deep dish.

2 comments:

  1. Never had the pizza but the Reggano Parm Cheese is a def WINNER! Cant beat the price for the size you get anywhere!

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  2. I'm a big fan of the regular $1.99 Mama Cozzi's pizzas. A little bit of garlic powder and some Italian seasoning spruces them up nicely. I'd pick those over a something like a Jack's (most definitely over Orv's) any day of the week. Not to mention the Mama's are usually a good 5-6oz larger.

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