Pizza

We had my husband's brother and his girlfriend over to make pizza with us. It was a lot of fun! We made our own dough and our own sauce. The sauce turned out GREAT. We kind of winged it with what to put in it, but we did have a recipe to follow with the spices in the sauce. We did have a recipe to follow for the dough. I didn't like the dough. It tasted like frozen pizza dough to me, which I don't like. I'm not a pizza person anyway... but I thought it would be a lot of fun. If you would like the recipe for the dough, let me know. Below is the recipe (sort of) for the sauce. Like I said... we didn't follow it exactly. We used fresh tomatoes instead of canned. We did use some tomato paste, but not a lot. And we put more spices in than it called for. But the sauce was SO GOOD! So without further ado:

Pizza sauce Ingredients

• 3 garlic cloves, minced (or 1/2 tsp of dried minced garlic)
  
• 3 tablespoons olive oil (only if you are sauteeing the garlic. If you are using dried minced you won't need this)
  
• 1 (29 ounce) can tomato paste (we used 18 oz and then 2 fresh, finely chopped tomatoes)
  
• 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes (we did not use this because of our fresh tomatoes)
  
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar (we put in 4)
  
• 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
  
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (we put in about 3 tbsp! Too much but it really added some great flavor to the sauce!)
  

Directions

1. In a large saucepan, saute garlic in oil until tender (only if you are using fresh garlic! If not start with the next step by combining everything in a pan). Stir in the remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes or until sauce reaches desired thickness. Use in Deep-Dish Sausage Pizza, Tomato Artichoke Chicken or any recipe that calls for pizza sauce. Sauce may be refrigerated for up to 1 week.