My friend Suzanne, of Cooking by the Bay, and I spent the weekend working a new pizza dough recipe. That’s all fine and good but eating plain, old pizza dough is kind of boring in my opinion. So, we worked up toppings from the leftovers in my fridge. Now the week prior my friend Tish, of Sun and Water Farms, dropped off a mess of potatoes, onions, carrots and bell peppers she had left over from a catering event. While I made use of the potatoes by slicing and baking them in butter, it was the peppers and onions that fell prey to my knife and died a slow and glorious death caramelizing in the pan.

A bit of spicy chicken sausage and you would think we had a complete pizza but, there has always been one thing about pizzas that has eluded me since . . . well . . . birth. What makes a good pizza sauce? It is tomato of course but what else? Suzanne and I decided to start out simply and Thank You, Thank You we needn’t go any further. Our sauce was just a combination of pureed canned tomatoes (Hey, they were on my shelf), tomato paste, salt, pepper, garlic and some freshly ground chili flakes; add heat for 5 minutes and we’re done.

This pizza was so good we made two in one day and I made another last night.

Cheers,    tj

Pizza (by layers)

Pizza dough,     rolled thin
Olive oil,     extra virgin (for the taste)
Tomato sauce   thin
Mozzarella     fresh, grated
Peppers & Onions   caramelized
Sausage     spicy chicken is good
Mozzarella     more of the same

On a pizza stone in a hot oven, 450 degrees F, until brown around the edges

Cool it, slice it and stick it in your head.