Cooking Up The Combo Magnifico - Papa Murphy's Newest Pizza Creation

I'd love to say that we're a week behind on blogging due to some marvelously fascinating event. "My first bite of the brand new Combo Magnifico pizza was immediately followed by a phone call from Michael Bay insisting I fill the primary role for Transformers 4. A role I regrettably had to turn down due to Chuck Norris showing up as I took my second bite, telling me to put down the phone and finish my slice, or else ..."

The Combo Magnifico, Up Close and Personal Before Cooking

Truth be told, however, we brought our pizza home, had a wonderful little picnic outside in the pollen factory that is middle Tennessee in April, and then came down with horrible sinus pains a few hours later. It was so bad that I never could sleep and had to call in to work the following day. Then the Easter festivities began, and the weekend became the week, and the week became mid-week, and now here we are.

But enough of the excuses and pity parties - we still got to have our pizza picnic, after all, and we have a brand new pizza to talk about!

Building the Combo Magnifico

Familiar Smiling Faces!

This week we brought home the brand new Combo Magnifico pizza. It's the first pizza in Papa Murphy's new Italia line. The major differences between this pizza and your standard Papa Murphy's pies are a new pizza sauce along with a new type of crust, which Papa Murphy's describes as "not-too-thick, not-too-thin crust." That description doesn't roll of the tongue quite like "Thin Crust" or "Deep Dish," but you have to give them credit for calling it just what it is. The Combo Magnifico comes topped with pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, and onions. The cheese is mix of mozzarella and parmesan along with some herbs.

Ready for the oven

Is it pizza yet?

All cooked up and ready to slice 'n serve

We found the new crust to be a great balance between the thin crusts on the deLITE pizzas and the standard crust. More of that satisfying crust flavor like what you get with the standard crusts, but a bit lighter on the stomach and perceptibly less guilty feelings when grabbing an extra slice. We'll most likely request our next regular pizza order  be put on the Italia crust, too, just to mix things up a bit.

Up close and personal, post-cooking. Those toppings look good! 

Pizza cutter depth reference check

For as much as I enjoyed the new crust, I have to say that I'm still more of a fan of the regular pizza sauce. The new "zesty red sauce" tasted very good, but it seemed a bit sweeter to me than the standard sauce. Taste is obviously a very subjective experience, and I love that Papa Murphy's has introduced a couple of new sauces in the past month for folks who do prefer a slightly sweeter experience. More choices are always better! But for me, while I very much enjoyed this pizza overall, their tried and true regular pizza sauce remains steadfastly atop my favorites list.

Sliced and ready for consuming!

If your mouth had eyes ...

I asked the wife to sum up the new pizza in one word, and after contemplating a bite for a few seconds, she replied, "Gourmet-y." Made up words aside, I'm inclined to agree with her. Something about the culmination of all the Magnifico's ingredients just gave it a more "gourmet" flavor than your standard pizza. After a couple of weeks of meat-focused pizzas, I also enjoyed the balancing flavors from the mushrooms and onions this week. Overall, the ingredients all work very well together, and I'm looking forward to seeing what other Italia pizzas are offered in the future.

Excited about having a front yard picnic!

Diet Dr. Pepper Cherry and the Combo Magnifico ... Yum!

It was so pretty out this past week that we decided to throw a quilt on the front lawn and have ourselves a pizza picnic. Killer pollen allergies waiting to strike aside, it was a lovely evening. And we found out that we weren't the only Papa Murphy's fans in the yard. I don't know what species this little fellow is (and I'm resisting the urge to sound more informed than I truly am by Googling it prior to writing this), but he really loves this pizza. So much so that he not only risked getting within arms reach of a 17-month-old to have a few nibbles, but actually let his guard down long enough that she managed to sneak a quick *flick* to his tail that finally sent him retreating to the nearby tree.

Our drop-in guest

Hey Mikey, I think he likes it

Stayed tuned for another blog update this week; even though we got a week behind in our posts, we're still on track with our weekly pizzas, and our latest one from last night was something a bit different and fun that we hope to get some feedback (and tips) on from our readers. Spoiler alert - it also weighed in at a massive 5 lbs, 4 ounces!