Tomato Sauce......

I found this recipe at Butter Yum.  I think I will be using it from now on for pizza, bread dipping sauce and even spaghetti sauce.  Everyone liked this sauce a lot but the teenager said it needed to be pureed more. 

Tomato Sauce

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2-3 tablespoons olive oil
1 jumbo onion, diced
5-6 garlic cloves (pressed, crushed, or minced)
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon pepper
6 ounce can tomato paste
6 pound can whole tomatoes (pureed until smooth in food processor, blender, or food mill)
3 tablespoon dried parsley
4 dried bay leaves
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon kosher salt (or half as much table salt)
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
*Fresh basil, chopped or torn (as much as you like, but don't add until serving)

  Over med-high heat, sauté onions, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp pepper in olive oil until caramelized. Add garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Add tomato paste and caramelize for 3-5 minutes; stirring constantly.

Add pureed tomatoes, bay leaves, dried oregano, dried basil (don't add the fresh basil yet), red pepper flakes, 1 tsp kosher salt, and 1/2 tsp pepper; stir to combine. Simmer on low for about an hour. Remove bay leaves. Add fresh basil just before serving.

So now what to dip with our sauce.  I thought mini-calzones would be good.  You could also make big calzones and put the sauce inside them, but we really liked this because the mini-calzones were crispy and you could scoop up the sauce.  This is similar to my Veggie Pepperoni Bread, only I made extra Pizza Dough Friday night and used that instead of the store bought dough and then they are individual instead of one big one cut up into bite size pieces.  You could dip the Veggie Pepperoni Bread (which would be good), but they are not as crispy as the mini-calzones.

This recipe makes 12 cups.  I didn't make mine with 6 pounds of tomatoes.  I found 1 pound cans at my grocery store and since there is only three of us, I only used 2 pounds of tomatoes and adjusted the spices as I went a long.  We had a lot left over just with the two cans of tomatoes.  Mike used it for pizza sauce and Hailee used it over pasta one night besides the mini-calzones that I made to go with it.   We don't usually put pizza sauce on our pizza but Mike liked this sauce so much he said he wanted to try it.  I'm trying it on my pizza next time because his looked and smelled really good!

Everyone says San Marzano are the best canned tomatoes.  Butter Yum says she likes to add ground beef with onions in hers and I thought my favorite meatless meat cooked with sautéed onions and garlic salt sounded really good and to use over spaghetti.

Have a wonderful day!  Denise

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