Papa Ron's

We eat lots of pizza here on the Farm...lots and lots of pizza.  I can't say all of this pizza is made by my two little big hands, but 99% of it is.  (In fact, we actually had a pizza delivered to our house for only like the 2nd time in our lives just 2 short weeks ago.  It arrived at 12:15 am.  Long story, but let's just say that the things people will do to keep from losing their frequent flier miles is amazing.  Sheesh!)

Homemade pizza is great on so many levels - it's delicious, it's easy to make, it's cheap, it's a great way to use up stuff you've got hiding in your fridge.  You can even use it to sneak some crazy veggies into your kiddo's bodies.  Not that I've ever done that before...

My crust recipe is just your basic french bread recipe - 3 cups flour, 1 cup water, 2 tsp yeast, 1 T salt, 1 T oil.  I can tell you more about that later.

What I'm excited to share is that I think I've finally found it - The Sauce!  I've been searching for a sauce recipe for years.  The sauce is important.  The sauce is the border zone between the crispy, chewy crust and the ooey, gooey cheese.  You don't want it too sweet or salty.  It shouldn't be watery.  There should be some spice to it, but not too much.  It's a tough thing to find, but find it I did.  We've had The Sauce twice now and there have been rave reviews by all.  Yeah!

As a bonus, (you knew this was coming), this sauce is healthy since there aren't any "funny" ingredients and it's cheap.  I "sixed" this recipe (what is it called when you multiply a recipe times 6 anyway?) and got enough sauce for 18 big pizzas.  I think the huge batch cost less than $6.00 which comes out to a sauce cost of only .33 per pizza.  Say that 10 times fast, "sauce cost."

In honor of my Big Guy...

Papa Ron's Pizza Sauce

makes enough for 2-3 pizzas depending on how saucy you are

16 oz can of tomato sauce
6 oz can of tomato paste
2 t sugar
1 t dried basil
1 t dried oregano
1/2 t salt
2 T olive oil

Put all of this in a pot and simmer until the flavors mix.  Wham!  You're done.

You might want to add a bit more seasoning depending on your tastes.  A small shake of crushed red pepper would be yummy if you don't have little ones eating that pizza.

After the sauce cooled, I put 2 cups of it into ziploc sandwich bags and froze them.  Now making pizza for dinner is even easier!  Next time, I'll probably only put 1 1/2 cups in each baggie.  I used one bag tonight on 2 pizzas and had enough to sauce up a 3rd.

Happy Eating!