Garden Fresh Pizza Sauce

I've already discussed my feelings on pizza. If you missed this, you can check out my pizza dough recipe to understand my obsession. Luckily, I found a husband who shares my pizza obsession. Apparently we were just meant to be. A match made in pizza heaven. Everybody say, "AWWWW." Okay good. We can move on now.

When we were in college my husband and his brother were roommates and would easily eat at least one frozen pizza a week. I have to admit that for college, even making a frozen pizza was pretty good. I'm guessing a lot of students probably didn't even know if the oven in their apartment actually worked. Why cook when there are 50 million cheap take-out places nearby? Seriously, they had a point. However, once out of college and married the deal became that we could eat pizza to our hearts' content but I wanted to make it at home.

Our homemade pizzas started with homemade pizza dough and store bought everything else. That was a great start! Then I started making cheese so it was homemade pizza dough with homemade cheese and bought everything else. Now I apparently make pizza sauce so it's homemade pizza dough, homemade cheese, and homemade pizza sauce with store bought pepperoni. Pepperoni is pepperoni and it's a hard habit to kick. Seriously. I don't see myself making it so I may have to actually buy it as is. Such is life.

Bottom line is, you don't have to make EVERYTHING from scratch to have some good eats! We didn't start by making the whole shebang from scratch but eventually it becomes easier. Also, once you make one piece of the pizza (like sauce or dough), you can freeze it for the next time and the process is a lot easier!

GARDEN FRESH PIZZA SAUCE
prep time: 20 minutes, cook time: 30 minutes
makes: approximately 1.5-2 cups of pizza sauce

INGREDIENTS

• 10 Roma tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 1/2 tablespoons fresh basil, minced (or 1 teaspoon dried)
• 1/2 tablespoon sugar, optional depending on sweetness of tomatoes and preference
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• pinch of salt & pepper, to taste

DIRECTIONS

1. Bring small pot of water to a boil. While waiting for the water to boil, cut an "X" shape on bottom of each tomato (see above image). This will help the skin remove easily. Once the water is boiling, place the tomatoes in the water for about 30 seconds. Remove the tomatoes and place into bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Once cool enough to handle, remove the skin and discard. The skin should basically fall off of the tomatoes. Cut tomatoes in half, remove extra seeds from the tomatoes and discard. Set the tomatoes aside.
2. Heat olive oil in skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and let saute 4-5 minutes. Add garlic and saute about 1 more minute. Add seeded tomatoes and break apart a bit with a spoon. Add the oregano, basil, sugar, crushed red pepper, and salt & pepper. 
3. Let simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. Transfer to blender to blend or blend with handheld blender in the skillet (this option can get messy) if you want a smoother texture.

NOTES

You can also make this with a can of diced or crushed tomatoes (I'm guessing about a 28 oz can) instead of the fresh tomatoes. 

I used about 1/3 of a cup of sauce on my pizza but I'm not a fan of a ton of sauce. With the leftovers, I split them into small freezer bags in about 1/3 cup portions. This way, I can put the sauce in the refrigerator the night before and it will be waiting for me to make pizza!