Seconds Please

Thanks to Mama Gruen, this weekend we had the best homemade pizza I have ever eaten... Really, I mean it... I did cheat a little and use Trader Joes pizza dough, but really for $1.99 you can't beat it.. Actually, this whole meal can be purchased there which makes it really user friendly!

There are a few must dos when cooking this most awesomest meal.

1. This tomato sauce from Gweneth Paltrow's Goop is delish.. her singing may be debatable but she sure knows how to make a sauce.

2. Limited amounts of cheese, toppings and sauce. I tended in the past to add too much of all of these and it gets a bit soggy.

3. Use a preheated pizza stone.

4. Bake at 500 degrees on the lower rack for 10 mins.


If you do all of this you end up with mouth watering yumminess :)

Tomato Sauce
* From GOOP

Olive Oil

1 28 ounce cans of whole peeled tomatoes. San Marzanos are the BEST.. but if you can't find that then add a pinch of sugar to the sauce.

3 cloves of garlic.

Basil leaves

S & P

In a large saucepan, slowly cook three cloves of thinly sliced garlic in a couple tablespoons of olive oil for five minutes over low heat. Add two large, fresh basil leaves and stir for a minute. Add the whole, peeled tomatoes along with their juice and two more whole basil leaves. Bring the sauce to a boil, turn down the heat, season with salt and pepper and let it bubble away on low heat for 45 minutes. Cool and refrigerate.

* You are going to have a lot left over, so this is great for pasta bakes or spaghetti.








Pepperoni Pizza
* All from Trader Joes

Pizza Dough
Tomato Sauce
1/2 of a medium sized fresh mozzarella ball, sliced
1/2 cup Quatro Formaggio shredded cheese
Pepperoni

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Make sure that one of your racks is in the lowest position in the oven.

Place pizza stone in for 1 hour prior to cooking.

Take pizza dough out of the fridge twenty minutes before cooking.

Flour a cutting board or a pizza board and roll out pizza dough. First make it into a ball and then start stretching it out by hand. Once you have your basic shape use a rolling pin. The pizza circle should be aprox 15 inches in diameter.

Use aprox 1/3 cup of sauce and spread evenly over dough.

Scatter the mozzarella, quattro formaggio, and then aprox 10 slices of pepperoni.

Then gently slide the pizza onto the pizza stone and cook for 10 minutes.

Take out of the oven and let rest for 5 mins.

* Not the best photo, but just to give you an idea :)