Pizza, Pizza

Homemade pizza!

(shh the crust is store-bought!)

I'm sharing with you a method for cooking your store bought crust.

And a recipe for quick homemade tomato sauce.

You can top it with whatever you'd like!

I topped this with sweet sausage, caramelized onions, and mozzarella.  

After it was done baking, I garnished it with shaved Pecorino cheese, and arugula and parsley drizzled with a bit of olive oil and red wine vinegar. 

But I had leftover pizza crust! 

 Oh no, what to do?!

 This one I used the same tomato sauce and sweet sausage, added red pepper and diced asparagus, and topped with chimichurri sauce!

I love chimichurri sauce!

I'll share my recipe soon.

 Pizza, pizza.

1 package refrigerated pizza crust

(I used Pillsbury Artisan Whole Grain Pizza Crust, rolled out and cut into a circle, worked lovely!)

Tomato Sauce recipe follows.

1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Brush a cast iron skillet with a tsp of olive oil. 
2. Press the pizza dough into the skillet, so it comes up the edges just about 1/2 inch.  
3. Disperse the tomato sauce on the pie (you may not need entire tomato sauce recipe, I had about 1/4 cup leftover)
4. Heat the cast iron skillet over medium high heat. Cook about 5 minutes.  Peek at the bottom of the crust, when it's beginning to turn a light golden color remove from heat. Don't wait until it's completely golden brown or it will burn in the oven.
5. Top the pizza with whatever you desire.  I topped mine with sweet italian sausage, caramelized onion, and mozzarella.
6. Bake about 6-8 minutes, until crust is golden brown and cheese is melted.
7. Remove from oven and top with any garnishes desired (I topped it with shaved Pecorino, arugula, parsley). Enjoy!

Quick Tomato Sauce
3 tomatoes (can use canned crushed tomatoes if desired)
1 tbsp tomato paste
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 tsp to 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes, depending how spicy you like

Use a vegetable peeler to peel the tomatoes. Cut out white core, cut into quarters, and place in large bowl.  Crush the tomatoes using a potato masher (or your hands if you're really into it).  Pour the crushed tomatoes in a strainer, use a spoon to smash them down and drain them of as much liquid as possible. Once drained, mix the crushed tomatoes with all other ingredients. That's it!